What If Disaster Heroes Were Just Well-Trained Neighbors & Friends?
Mapping Disaster Heroes to Real-Life Emergency Skills
We all want a hero. Or maybe a hero type.
Besides wanting one nearby, I think many people also want to be the person who knows what to do. We just may not know how, or whether we could.
I’ve been thinking about preparedness communication and how to connect more people, especially younger people, with the free emergency training already available locally.
Popular culture already teaches people to admire preparedness. We just don't recognize those abilities as learnable civic skills.
Popular culture has already given us a vocabulary for these roles: the improviser, the scout, the caretaker, the community leader, the survivor. We recognize the person who stays calm, works with what is available, finds the injured, organizes the group, or gets others through the first hour.
My idea was to match those familiar and admired hero types with practical skills people can actually learn nearby and for free.
The image is an early exercise in that direction. It asks whether the abilities we admire in our favorite characters could be ordinary, teachable neighborhood skills.
Maybe the question is not whether you are heroic but what kind of helper you could learn to become?
Heroes aren’t born. They’re made.
Do you know the disaster hero skills you can learn for free in your neighborhood?
This image is unfinished. It’s an unproofed concept draft and contains the usual AI artifacts, misspellings, and imperfect matches. If I were to develop this concept further, I would verify the characters and storylines, refine the archetypes, and reconcile each example with the actual curricula. For now, I’m sharing the idea and a glimpse of the process.
New peer-reviewed research on Expat Harem is published
My book is 20 years old and currently undergoing a "renaissance" in academic circles. It looks to remain the gold standard for Turkish expat memoirs.
It’s always a thrill to learn that someone has spent time with something I created, let alone adding it to the body of their own scholarship with a cool tag like #imagology.
I just noticed a new academic research article on the anthology I co-edited more than twenty years ago. A peer-reviewed paper Translating Türkiye’s women in a transnational context: the case of Tales from the Expat Harem by Hilal Erkazanci Durmus, an Associate Professor of Translation Studies at Hacettepe University in Ankara, has been published in the Translation Studies Journal this spring, March 2026.
Her article examines Tales from the Expat Harem from a translation studies perspective, as a cultural product moving within a social network.
Professor Durmus examines the book through the lens of translation sociology, an investigation into translation as a social practice. It looks at the “agents" involved—translators and editors acting as active mediators and cross-cultural agents—and how our choices were shaped by the institutions, publishing demands, and power dynamics of the time.
The study examines how the authors "translate" Turkish culture and women’s roles for a global audience.
Her research explores the social, economic, and political factors that influence how stories like these are produced, distributed, and received. It’s a deep dive into how translations impact the global circulation of ideas, especially when moving between major languages and cultures.
Professor Durmus teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on translation sociology and discourse, and her paper is tagged with some fascinating identifiers: cultural translation, feminist translation, imagology, migrant women (the "expats," in academic terms), and Türkiye.
Joining the first D2 Open House
This week marked the first-ever District 2 Open House at Fort Mason. Organized by Jack Hebb, the communications director for Supervisor Stephen Sherrill, who I got to know last year organizing the D2 Map Your Neighborhood event at the Palace of Fine Arts.
SFFD Captain Hashim Anderson, Captain Brandon Tom, me, and Fire Chief Dean Crispen. Assistant Fire Marshall Kathy Arnold can be seen at the table assisting residents.
The Mayor Daniel Lurie, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, and Supervisor Stephen Sherrill spoke about public safety to the crowd that assembled with only a few hours notice. There were tables from multiple city departments, like Police and Parks and Public Works and Emergency Management, ready to answer and assist with permits, grants, and inquiries.
The Fire Dept invited me to table with them to meet my District 2 neighbors in my initiative to revitalize emergency response in this area. The table was rounded out by EMT Alia Dong-Stewart who taught CPR to attendees and Assistant Fire Marshall Kathy Harold who keeps the city up to code. As you can see I wore the vest, the only neon green in the room so easy to find if you wanted to connect with me! Granted, it was also easy to find DA Jenkins. She was wearing head to toe fuchsia and heels.
I alerted my local NERT roster and was able to meet face to face for the first time with numerous response team members who live in Cow Hollow and Marina. We’ve been penpals for the past two years discussing the history of NERT and the present conditions of our team roster: aging out, in need of new members.
Passing The Baton
One 90-year old NERT hung up her helmet for the last time this week. She came to the D2 Open House to hand me back her vest and green helmet. Thirty plus years of service! Brava, Frances, and thank you.
I was edified that I met so many people who are members of neighborhood groups, which is exactly how to scale the Fire Department’s offer of free training: when an organized group takes it on and disseminates the opportunity to their own membership. I look forward to what we can all do together this year.
Thanks to the Mayor for his initiative to stage District Open Houses “to bring the city to the neighborhoods”.
What am I bringing to the civil service? All my experience and exposure.
My late-career stage brings a wealth of diverse experiences and perspectives that make me a unique and valuable candidate for civil service. My extensive background spans multiple decades and includes living and working in various American cities and three other countries, offering me deep insights into different cultural and social norms. Raised in a progressive Civil Rights hotbed, my early experiences shaped my commitment to social justice, inclusivity, and equity, while my upbringing in an integrated school district with BIPOC and AAPI teachers further enriched my understanding of diversity.
Throughout my career, I have consistently advocated for marginalized communities, from mentoring students of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and undocumented students to promoting gender equality and challenging workplace discrimination. My experience with transcendental meditation community has given me unique perspectives on spirituality. Additionally, growing up in a lower socio-economic environment taught me about systemic inequalities and the importance of creating opportunities for all.
My age also brings a level of resilience, adaptability, and problem-solving skills honed over decades of navigating diverse environments and challenging situations. This rich tapestry of experiences equips me with the maturity, empathy, and strategic vision necessary to contribute meaningfully to civil service, driving forward initiatives that promote equity and inclusion.
Once an archaeologist, always an archaeologist
What seemed like all the archaeologists in America were in town last week at the 127th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America and the Society for Classical Studies...
At the Bryn Mawr College lunch I caught up with my classmate-now-Etruscan expert Alexandra Carpino (don't miss the big Etruscan exhibit coming to the Legion of Honor in May 2026!) and our Aegean Bronze Age professor Jim Wright who recently led the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and even in retirement continues his ongoing project in Crete...
Neighbors helping neighbors 💪 with the Supervisor & the Fire Captain at the Palace of Fine Arts
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of organizing and hosting a SFFD NERT Map Your Neighborhood (MYN) disaster preparedness class with SF City Supervisor Stephen Sherrill at the Palace of Fine Arts — and what an energizing afternoon it turned out to be!
Neighbors Come Together to Get Ready
Our Eventbrite registration page garnered more than 400 visits, so I hope that means a lot of people are quietly interested in being better prepared. About 10% completed the registration.
We had about 25 people total in attendance, including a teenage boy who brought his parents (I love seeing families learning together), neighbors from Broderick and Filbert Street including a block with a longtime neighborhood watch group. We were joined by several Marina District Avila Street group leaders who are now organizing for emergency response — they’re already famous for their Halloween block parties! Folks came not just from Cow Hollow and the Marina, but also from Pacific Heights, the Richmond, and even the Mission and the Sunset District — a great mix of neighborhoods coming together to learn how to take care of each other when disaster strikes.
Fire Department and City Leaders Join the Effort
As the SFFD NERT Program Coordinator from the Fire Department, Fire Captain Brandon Tom came and spoke to everyone about the opportunities to get free training.
The Supervisor’s legislative assistant Jack Hebb captured footage for District 2’s channels. The event was featured in the Supervisor’s newsletter (thank you for including us — it was a very full news month!).
SFFD PIO Sam Menchaca was there filming videos for the Fire Department to share.
SFFD PIO Sam Menchaca captures footage of SFFD NERT Paul Tipp registering walk-ins. Thanks to Paul and fellow NERT Elisabeth Brandon for volunteering to assist during this special event!
A Perfect Setting for Community Connection
The Small Theatre space at the Palace worked beautifully — cozy, focused, and perfect for discussion. Huge thanks to Rich Goss for helping us secure it for this event! We had a handful of walk-ins, and curious pedestrians stopped by to ask what NERT is, including a tourist from Boston, Massachusetts who will now look to see about CERT classes in his area.
Instructor Sue Brown addressing the class in the small theatre of the Palace of Fine Arts
Learning the Nine-Step MYN Plan
Our instructor, SFFD NERT Sue Brown, did a fantastic job leading the 90-minute session, walking everyone through the nine-step MYN plan — a simple but powerful way for neighbors to coordinate after a disaster when first responders can’t reach us right away. The class focused on communication, checking on neighbors, and mapping local resources so we can all help one another in that “golden hour” after an emergency.
One of the most exciting takeaways? Supervisor Stephen Sherrill’s involvement seems to have inspired other districts to invite their supervisors to participate in a class. Sue tells me Districts 7 and 11 are now planning their own MYN events — how great is that? Preparedness truly spreads!
Keeping the Spirit of NERT Alive
No one from my street or block showed up (despite my relentless leafleting directly to their residences 😅), but I’m hopeful that awareness will begin to build. After all, District 2 is where NERT began — right after the Loma Prieta earthquake — and it’s up to us to keep that legacy alive. We still have 92-year-old NERTs here in the neighborhood waiting for the next generation to step up. I am thinking about them when I contact the rest of you!
The Next Generation Is Every Neighbor
We already have the free classes from generous volunteer instructor Sue Brown — we just need people to take them.
Stay Involved and Stay Prepared
Find a readiness event that works for you, and come!
If you couldn’t make it this time, keep an eye out for future SFFD NERT and Map Your Neighborhood trainings listed on the Fire Dept. site here: NERT TRAINING CALENDAR.
The more we know, the stronger and safer our community becomes.
Because in the golden hour after a disaster, we all become first responders.
NERT Citywide Drill October 2025, Dogpatch YMCA
Participated in the second annual citywide drill for 2025, at the new YMCA in Dogpatch. New skill practice: Hose Drag.
The Hose Tender rig you see here is newly custom-made for the department and features a 5,500-gpm pump and carries 6,000-feet of 5-inch hose. We’re pumping water out of the bay here, using the 3,000-gpm carbon fiber, hydraulically driven, submersible pump for situations where a tender may not be positioned close to a water source.
Tending a handheld 1.5 inch fire hose.
NERT Program Director Captain Brandon Tom welcomes the assembly of certified NERTs to this drill of Battalion-based teams. He asks if we felt the earthquake the other day.
Practicing messaging during an incident, reporting key information to incident command with the LCAN format. LCAN stands for Location, Conditions, Actions, and Needs. A takeaway from this drill was that sometimes you have location, conditions, and actions but no needs. In that case, you log it at your own command and you don’t report it up the chain to battalion. Battalion only wants to know what we need, not what we’re finding and handling ourselves in the field. Later the activity logs will be filed. All these messages will be logged. Updates will be logged and filed. There’s a lot of paperwork and systems to learn.
It was time to prune the tansies
The season is changing and these plants needed to be trimmed down in height and air space cleared between them for the rains ahead. Touching the dune tansy (tannacetum bipinnatum) released their scent which was likened to “focaccia”, a slight hint of rosemary, green oil, yeast. Delicious work.
They smelled “like focaccia”
Pruning the DUNE tansy at a special catch up program
In 10 days of government shutdown alone, the Presidio Nursery had to cancel 205+ hours of volunteer help at a critical season in plant care. To catch up, they called on experienced volunteers who worked with the Nursery before to come and focus on potted plant care within the greenhouse and shadehouse: pruning, demossing, weeding-in-pots, and fertilizing.
I’ve been a volunteer at the indigenous plant nursery in the Presidio since 2023. The nursery is a cooperative program of Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, National Parks Service, and Presidio Trust.
Touring Station 38 With The Battalion Chief: “it’s controlled chaos”
San Francisco is divided into 10 Fire Battalions. This week Neighborhood Emergency Response Team members (NERTs) from all reaches of Battalion 4’s neighborhoods came together to meet the Battalion Chief and tour Station 38.
Map of San Francisco’s 10 Fire Battalions
Thanks to Jon Kruse of the 4 Heights Group for arranging this rare tour with Captain Tom who is the NERT Program Coordinator, and the new Battalion Chief. They told us they are longtime associates in the department. They went to (fire?) school together 27 years ago!
The yellow Pelican case holds our staging area materials. We also have a canopy stored here.
In the event of a disaster, this is the Battalion that our particular NERT groups will be assisting, and communicating with via the Auxiliary Communications Service by HAM radio, and by runner.
We will set up a staging area in nearby Lafayette Park to gather resources awaiting tactical deployment. We practice this at our citywide drills twice a year, and sometimes neighborhoods practice their own. In the Marina we don’t have enough active NERTs to man our staging area so we’ll stage with the Pacific Heights groups right around the corner from Station 38. Our yellow boxes of staging area materials is stored here.
The Chief, who comes from Battalion 3 in the Tenderloin - the busiest station in the nation? -, described the nature of his work.
“It’s controlled chaos.”
We learned among tasks that the department may need our extra on the ground help with is carrying the hose - and it’s heavy.
My international experience
I have lived and worked in numerous American cities and other countries, gaining firsthand insights into various cultural and social norms. As an expatriate in Muslim-majority countries in Southeast Asia and the Near East, I learned to read the fine print of each culture. My work included translating Turkish culture on live television for five million Americans and publishing a stereotype-busting book about Turkey. These international experiences enhanced my adaptability and cultural competence, allowing me to navigate diverse environments effectively. They also reinforced my understanding of global interconnectedness and the importance of cultural diplomacy.
Finding out if we can bring block readiness back to Cow Hollow & the Marina District….
Cow Hollow once had block captains. The Marina once had ALL of the San Francisco Fire Department’s certified neighborhood emergency responders.
That’s because after the destructive Loma Prieta earthquake, the Marina became the birthplace of the Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) program here in the city, and it has been a standard for the program spreading to other neighborhoods as 20,000 people have been trained in the past 30 years.
But the area’s readiness seems to have peaked and ebbed as people move away, follow other interests, age out of certain activities.
I have taken the pulse of the area as the official coordinator of Cow Hollow and Marina NERTs the past year and a half. I’ve discovered that NERT may have been born here after the Loma Prieta but there are only a handful of active NERTs left here.
I’ve had a chance to connect with former block captains and longtime NERTs in the area. “I couldn’t find anyone to take over from me,” one 80-year old block captain and former NERT told me. “The only person I still know on the block is 90.”
We have to take the baton from earlier neighbor responders, and pass it on to our neighbors of today. The people next door and the people across the street.
And there’s only one hour we need to focus on: The Golden Hour.
The Golden Hour, or first 60 minutes after a disaster happens, is when neighbors rely on each other. We can check on each other, treat minor injuries, and put out small fires.
The first 60 minutes after a disaster happens is when neighbors rely on each other. We can check on each other, treat minor injuries, and put out small fires.
A block - both sides of the street, about 20 homes - can learn to work together in “the Golden Hour” where we can make the most impact as neighbors.
Can we bring block readiness back to Cow Hollow & the Marina District? To do so, groups and leaders in our district can use this easy and free 9 step neighborhood response plan class that the SF Fire Department supports.
“Do you know how to turn off your neighbor’s gas?”
Do you know how to stop a small fire from spreading from one home to the next home? How to shut off the water main so pollutants don’t enter your system? Or how to alert your neighbors you might need help?
Each block in our district and the city can learn these life-saving and property-protecting skills.
You can learn it in a free 9-Step block-by-block readiness program, like the one offered last week at the Golden Gate Valley Branch Library.
According to this SF Fire Dept preparedness program called Map Your Neighborhood (MYN), we do better in disaster response when we know each other.
As a NERT, the first households I am most likely to be able to reach and work with for emergency resilience are on my own block: gas turn offs, fire extinguisher shares, staging and gathering areas in homes and garages.
A year ago I took this 90 minute class, it covers what happens BEFORE NERTs deploy to help the wider neighborhood. We check our household, our building, our block.
I am probably the only person on my block to take the class, I believe I am the only NERT on my block. I wish I weren’t the only one who knows this. I see that NERT is a commitment and our area could start with something lighter weight like MYN. It’s an easy way to increase a block’s readiness for emergency situations that gets neighbors talking to each other about how we can each help. You can read about it here.
My takeaway from the class? I thought, “I’m not ready to tell my neighbors! That means….my block is definitely not ready.”
I can’t deploy as a NERT before I have taken stock of my own area. Since taking the class, I’ve been mapping my own block. I started talking to local neighbor associations about spreading the response plan to larger groups of neighbors.
Last week I attempted the next step: telling my neighbors about it (I even printed out flyers!) and inviting them to a class thanks to the dedication of the instructor of the class, fellow NERT Sue Brown. She is committed to making a regular schedule of events and bringing this class to a person on every block, and then to all the neighbors on that block — the class is a funnel of sorts, inducting us into a plan that only works if our neighbors know about it and take part.
I invited every household on my block to consider attending this event or another one upcoming. We can’t do the plan if they don’t know the plan.
“In a disaster, when emergency responders like 911, fire, police, utilities, EMS are overwhelmed, we are the responders.”
We can revitalize our block readiness
With a free and regularly offered 9 STEP PROGRAM supported by the SF Fire Department. Pictured at Golden Gate Valley Library with District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill
I invited community leaders to take the class.
I also invited our new District 2 Supervisor, Stephen Sherrill, who joined the class. Supervisor Sherrill reminded me that he led hurricane response in the Office of Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York, and then two hurricanes hit the city, so he knows why we need neighborhood readiness training and he’s interested in what we NERTs are doing in Cow Hollow and Marina.
I invited Rich Goss, a member of the security committee of the Cow Hollow Association, to join the class to see how the free fire department readiness class can kick off block-level readiness in our district.
I hope to raise awareness on my block - and all the blocks - to let people know we have a 9-step plan to increase readiness with our neighbors. We just need to be walked through it. This class does that.
All it takes to get started with district readiness is one person from one block to attend the 90 minute class.
The next classes will be at the Fire Department, Folsom & 19th, June 21 9am and 11 am. If you’re interested, but unable to attend these sessions, please contact Sue Brown, suebrown21@yahoo.com, for information on other sessions. If you’re in my district or neighborhood and interested, you can let me know too!
There’s also a Zoom MYN on June 19. Sign up here.
Drilling with my battalion neighbors at NERT's Citywide Drill Spring 2025
The NERT Citywide Drill Spring 2025 was held at the Couny Fair building in Golden Gate Park this weekend for SF Fire Department neighborhood emergency response team (NERT) volunteers. I’ve been a certified NERT since 2018 and this is the fourth citywide drill I’ve now participated in.
Besides meeting up with NERTs I’m in touch with as the Cow Hollow and Marina District coordinator role I took on since 2024, there were some new opportunities I especially appreciated. Among them:
BATTALION DRILLS
NERT has shifted from small neighborhood teams to Battalion-based groups that encompass 5 or 6 neighborhoods. It’s how we will organize and stage response together in a disaster. We drilled with our Battalion 4 mates, so got to meet them and work with them for the first time. There were 10-12 of us when I joined them for the ALL HAZARD ROOM, a drill that combines a bunch of hazards: water leaks, gas leaks, downed electrical wiring, a victim trapped under heavy rubble, an uninjured neighbor in a wheelchair who wants to stay with the trapped victim, a sudden fire that needs to be suppressed, and earthquake aftershocks.
RADIO OPS, STAGING AREAs
Most of the day I was with the Hams (I got my Technician license last year and haven’t had much chance to use it yet). At this citywide event, radio operators had drills: there was an Auxiliary Communications System Field Team, with Planning and Walking radio groups for two disaster staging areas that mimicked the staging areas we’d set up for each Battalion group in the event of an emergency. I shadowed/scribed for a radio operator taking down incoming incident messages from our Walker and random people coming to the staging area to report their findings, like building collapses, fires, and injuries needing medical attention and rescue, and then communicating that to ACS Field Leader who interfaced with Battalion.
STOP THE BLEED & OPIOID OVERDOSES
There was a short class on naloxone and tourniquets, which I hadn’t taken before. Now we know how to identify an opioid overdose symptoms, and administer a naloxone dose, as well as apply a tourniquet and make a tourniquet in the field with a strip of fabric and a ballpoint pen. Wouldn’t you like to know how to do this? I think we could all learn it. I want to see this common sense public service instruction everywhere, like on bus stops!
DISASTER VICTIM TRAINING VOLUNTEERS
I didn’t do the FIELD TRIAGE drill this time but saw children victim-actors with simulated injuries: broken bones, lacerations. The kids were disaster victim training volunteers and they helped NERTs practice what we’d do to help them if we encountered them in our neighborhoods after a disaster struck and before emergency services could reach them.
Take a look at a video reel of NERT’s Citywide Drill Spring 2025 from the fire department.
TBT 2011, 2013: false cosmopolitanism & brand mismanagement on social media
The Bellyflops of Social Media Mismanagement
I posted this in 2013 on my Medium page.
On the precipice of war, overreaching false cosmopolitanism continues. Plus, parents plan for unsustainable digital abstinence.
Today the Kenneth Cole Twitter account tweeted something thoughtless about “Boots on the ground” or not, don’t forget about sandals and loafers.
Nope.
Boots on the ground mean soldiers going to war possibly to be maimed or killed, and to wreak havoc on the lives of others. The precipice of war is not an opportunity to remind people you make loafers.
Feels like deja vu for Cole. Because it is. The brand flopped just like this in 2011.
In 2011 I made the connection between global mishaps of high profile brands and the false cosmopolitanism we’re all suffering.
There was Groupon’s SuperBowl ad fiasco, when the company attempted to mix consumerism with sensitive political, environmental, cultural, economic and social issues, and the Kenneth Cole Twitter debacle which appeared to make light of unrest in Cairo.
I wrote about earlier instances of the phenomenon of false cosmopolitanism in 2010. See links to that, and my influences below.
Access to the worldwide web makes us imagine we’re global thinkers. But most of us aren’t. Not even close.
In order to truly be global thinkers, we’d have to be xenophiles, actively and constantly bridging cultures, immersed and knowledgeable about multiple worlds.
Most people hang out in “like-minded microcosms” and when we cross a boundary online the new light shed on everyone’s prejudices and assumptions can take us by surprise.
This “xeno-confusion” is happening more often in the virtual realm, with higher and higher stakes.
Today’s other big story of social media mismanagement has been swiftly answered by Alexandra Samuel of Love Your Life Online. It falls into the category of unsustainable digital abstinence to solve problems that may crop up in the future.
“Don’t be scared to Facebook your kids,” she responds to Amy Webb’s piece at Slate “We Post Nothing About Our Daughter Online.”
Samuel writes: “Parenthood is such a central experience that there’s no way to cut it out of your online life without profoundly compromising your own ability to have authentic, meaningful connections online.”
That’s exactly right. Plus, digital abstinence doesn’t prepare you for the world your child will grow up in.
How are you preparing yourself for a wider world?
Improving a local gateway with indigenous plantings
Saturday morning spent planting native, drought resistant plant species with North End neighbors.
This was the plan: a Saturday morning spent planting native drought resistant plants with my neighbors and others. We would replace a gnarly grass lawn with the hope to make “Richardson and Lombard Streets a more welcoming and beautiful gateway into San Francisco”, in the words of the Cow Hollow Association, and rehabilitate the natural habitat as well.
“Plant food instead!” yelled a drive-by troll.
Thirty of us were on our knees in the dirt, with pick axes and knives, loosening the roots on plants we had just removed from their grow pots. The sun was surprisingly hot for 9:30 a.m., usually this area is slow to warm with all the tall trees and vegetation edging the Presidio not to mention the fogline that people like to say ends at Divisadero, a few blocks further into the city.
“Plant food instead!” a man yelled at us from a car. Literally a drive-by troll.
We were on the highly trafficked road that guides drivers to the Golden Gate Bridge in one direction and welcomes you to the city and neighborhood of Marina District in the other direction. Lots of cars, and carbon monoxide exhaust.
In the Bay Area, people speak their high mind. He’d already zoomed through the intersection but I knew what he meant: create a community food garden, for humans. That’s definitely needed in every area, and I suspect each project needs a plan and resilient support. Yelling the command from a car like a community edge lord doesn’t move the needle much.
It took me a second to react. This IS food, too, I would have told him.
This IS food. These 300 or 400 indigenous plants we’re putting into the ground feed birds, bees, and butterflies.
🤔💭 Our natural resources project with neighbors wasn’t the result of a split second decision, like his, to answer the question “Should we use this particular plot for food for humans or nature?” This particular plot was solved long ago, by a grass lawn. Agitating to change the lawn took three years and a lot of people.
The improvement melds the distinct situation and needs of the land with the ability and interest of the people and organizations around to care for it. Once these small plants and seedlings - grown from seed by the Presidio Nursery where I started volunteering last year - are established, they will not require further irrigation efforts or costs. They are intended to be hardy, and withstand the vagaries of the weather and rain seasons, and carbon monoxide from cars, and thrive.
The Richardson Gateway Project is the work of numerous area leaders like former city supervisor Catherine Stefani who secured the initial funding of $50,000 three years ago, and Cynthia Gissler of the Cow Hollow Association who invited the neighbors today. We were joined by members of the City’s Department of Public Works and the Presidio Trust, supervised by National Park Service and Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy Volunteer Supervisor Staff. Cynthia’s Aunt Caroline, a nonagenarian retired public school teacher, handled our release form paperwork for the day.
We were joined by the newly appointed city supervisor for District 2, Stephen Sherrill and his son.
🙏 to the people who honked with thumbs up, we did see you!
My wish for everyone out there:
I hope you find your chance to contribute to a local garden of your choosing.
If this particular block is anything judge by, community gardens are not “drive-by” efforts. They take commitment, leadership, time, resources, collaboration.
Among the hundreds of plants we put in the ground today: foxtail agave, coyote brush, monkey flower, buckeye, poppies, coffee berry, blue blossom, sage wort, deer grass, hummingbird sage, aster, wild rose, moor grass, anemone, sagebrush, seaside daisy, bluff lettuce.