Every year, Friends of the Urban Forest recognizes a community with the Brian Tsai Greener Block Award (formerly called the “Most Greenified Block Award,” and renamed for a beloved longtime staff member who died earlier this year). We have chosen two winners for 2020: the Oceanview Neighborhood and Carr Street.
The award recognizes an area of San Francisco that has undergone the greatest “green” transformation during the past year thanks to its progress in planting and maintaining street trees and sidewalk gardens with neighborhood participation.
The Oceanview Project
FUF staff and volunteers at the Oceanview planting. Rev. Sharon Avril is in the white t-shirt.
In February, we led neighborhood residents and volunteers in planting new street trees around Minnie and Lovie Ward Park in the Oceanview/Merced Heights/Ingleside (OMI) neighborhood.
New street trees on Lobos Street
The staff of the Wright Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church became neighborhood organizers and door knocked on behalf of FUF, brought the community together, hosted the planting, and made the potluck terrific with fried chicken and chocolate cake.
“We made sure the volunteers felt welcome at the planting,” said Rev. Sharon Avril, guest reverend at Wright Chapel AME, who was instrumental in making the planting a success.
Congratulations and thank you to Rev. Sharon, Wright Chapel AME, and Oceanview neighbors.
Carr Street resident Elijah Alaimo with FUF planting manager Zeima
The Carr Street Project
The Carr Street planting in the Bayview neighborhood last October exemplified community-building through tree planting. We worked with community organizations including Rebuilding Together SF and The Florence Fang Asian Community Garden.
Carr Street resident Elijah Alaimo invited a FUF staffer to talk about our work on his local radio show, which helped spread the word.
We planted a total of 10 trees on a small block, with a lot of community participation. Rebuilding Together led volunteers and residents in renovations to their homes and community centers, and the cross-organizational volunteer lunch hosted by the Asian Community Garden was massive.
Tree planting in the Bayview
“The FUF team did an amazing job from beginning to end,” Elijah said. “People are really happy with how it turned out.”
Congratulations Elijah and Carr Street neighbors!