Voices of the Community

Highlights Part 6 The Pandemic’s Lasting Impact on Human & Mental Health

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 23:48:05 +0000

“The energy devoted to treating mental health and reaching people who have mental health conditions is going to be on fire for not just this year, but for a while, because we don’t know exactly how deeply this pandemic and the mental health conditions that came out of it… we don’t know how long it’s gonna affect people yet. We just know it has impacted people and it will be for some time.” — Jennifer Baity - Mental Health Services Expert and Therapist | Find Out More About Jennifer in Episode 71

KEY TAKEAWAYS & TIMESTAMPS

[01:09] Mental health workers as frontline heroes—Edgewood Center’s 24/7 PPE crisis care for children and the hidden toll on staff
[13:08] Shy students find their voice—Women’s Audio Mission’s Girls on the Mic program transforms virtual learning into unexpected confidence
[19:04] California’s $235 billion arts economy loses 100,000 jobs—and the innovative funding models fighting to bring them back
[45:35] East Oakland builds its own safety net—Roots Community Health Center launches the Bay Area’s first walk-up COVID testing site

GUEST BIOS & RESOURCES

Featuring 19 community leaders including Dr. Noha Aboelata (Roots Community Health Center), Julie Baker (Californians for the Arts), Sekeenah El-Amin (Third Street Youth Center), and Elena Botkin-Levy (Women’s Audio Mission).

Organizations featured:

Edgewood Center for Children and Families (edgewood.org)
BM Magic, SF Public Defender’s Office
SF Arts Commission | Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA)
Flower Piano at SF Botanical Garden (sfbg.org)
Z Space – The Red Shades (zspace.org)
Returning to the Stage Study – AMS Planning & Research / Elon University

Check out the Full guest bios, transcripts, of our Highlight Episode 6 and dive into the 105 episodes of the Covid-19 series archive:

Make a tax-deductible donation at voicesofthecommunitydotcom—every dollar directly funds the next series.

Subscribe to Voices of the Community wherever you listen. Leave a rating and review to help these stories reach more ears.

CREDITS

Host & Producer: George Koster | Co-Host & Associate Producer: Eric Estrada | Design: Kasey Nance, Citron Studios

Broadcast Partners: KSFP-LP FM 102.5 (San Francisco) | KPCA-LP FM 103.3 (Petaluma)

Content Note: This episode discusses mental health, isolation, structural racism, unemployment, and community health disparities. Transcript available at georgekoster.com.

#VoicesOfTheCommunity #COVID19Impact #BayArea #MentalHealthMatters #ArtsAreEssential #HousingIsHealthcare #IndependentJournalism #CommunityHealth

© Voices of the Community | No corporate sponsors. No gatekeepers. Just the voices that matter.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Highlights Part 5 - “Reinventing San Francisco: Government, Downtown & Civic Trust”

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 19:56:24 +0000

"Instead of asking what's broken, we shine a spotlight on what's already good in people's lives" - Elena Fairley, Mission Asset Fund & Crankstart Foundation

In part 5 of our Highlight Episodes from our Covid-19 Special Series, we reveal the hidden fault lines cracking San Francisco's foundation — from a downtown office vacancy rate that's the highest in the nation to a business tax structure so complex that one company slashed its city bill by 88% simply by going remote.

You will learn how local governments in San Jose and San Rafael reinvented their operations overnight, how Mission Asset Fund is rebuilding financial access for undocumented immigrants through community-centered lending circles and micro-loans, and why the city's much-debated office-to-housing conversions remain largely theoretical.

We also decode the 2022 ballot propositions that put the future of affordable housing, homelessness oversight, and public libraries directly in voters' hands.

KEY TAKEAWAYS / TIMESTAMPS

[01:23] - Local governments forced to digitize overnight: lessons from San Jose & San Rafael.
[13:04] - 72% of SF's GDP was concentrated in the downtown core — here's what happened to it.
[20:01] - The tax loophole that's incentivizing companies to quietly abandon San Francisco.
[28:15] - Office-to-housing conversions: why costs, developers, and city hall are all pointing in different directions.
[35:10] - How lending circles are rebuilding financial lives for San Francisco's most invisible residents.

GUESTS

Fifteen thought leaders shape this conversation, including Joaquin Torres, San Francisco's Assessor-Recorder, who led a $92M economic development office; Jeff Bellisario of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, whose research tracks the 10 trends driving post-COVID recovery; and Jose Quinonez, CEO of Mission Asset Fund, a MacArthur Fellow pioneering financial inclusion for immigrant communities.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Covid-19 Series highlights, Part 5 guest profiles:
Covid-19's Impact on our communities
Special Series Resource Directory

SUPPORT VOICES OF THE COMMUNITY

Donate Now to support the making of shows like this one
Sign up for Voices of the Community’s Newsletter
Subscribe to Voices of the Community on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube so you never miss an episode — and if this conversation moved you, share it with one person who cares about the future of your city.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Highlights Part 4 - Libraries and Librarians: From COVID Lifelines to Book Bans

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 18:00:00 +0000

Then, we transition to a panel led by Susan Stuart Clark featuring library directors Jayanti Addleman (Hayward) and Derek Wolfgram (Redwood City). They share on-the-ground stories of how their institutions transformed overnight—from providing hotspots and homework centers to becoming de facto daytime shelters for unhoused neighbors. This episode highlights the resilience of library staff, the mental health crisis, and the lasting impact of the digital divide.

Key Topics & Takeaways

[00:03:40] Origins of “Free for All”: How the filmmakers realized librarians are "first responders" during Hurricane Katrina, aiding evacuees when other systems failed.
[00:10:45] The RV Tour Idea: Innovative distribution plans to project the documentary in library parking lots to maintain community during social distancing.
[00:15:00] Hayward’s Pivot: How Hayward Public Library immediately extended loan periods to one year and distributed hotspots to support students and immigrant families.
[00:18:20] Redwood City Online: The surprise benefit of online programming, which increased accessibility for people with disabilities and transportation barriers.
[00:21:00] Basic Needs & Hygiene: Libraries stepping up to provide portable toilets and handwashing stations for unhoused populations when public spaces closed.
[00:30:00] The Heartbreak of Success: A story about a patron who found housing but was devastated to lose his daily connection to the Redwood City Library community.
[00:50:00] The Future of Funding: The unprecedented opportunity of ARPA stimulus funds going directly to cities to help rebuild local services.

Guests & Host

George Koster – Host and Executive Producer of Voices of the Community.
Eric Estrada – Associate Producer and Host.
Dawn Logsdon & Lucie Faulknor – Co-Founders of Serendipity Films and creators of the documentary Free for All.
Susan Stuart Clark – Founder of Common Knowledge and community engagement expert.
Jayanti Addleman – Director of Library Services for the City of Hayward.
Derek Wolfgram – Library Director of Redwood City Public Library.

Resources & Links Mentioned

Free for All Documentary: Learn more about the film at FreeForAllFilms.org.
Voices of the Community Episode 10: Listen to the full interview with the filmmakers here: https://georgekoster.com/voc-free-for-all
Voices of the Community Library Panel: Listen to the full panel discussion with Susan, Jayanti, and Derek here: https://georgekoster.com/voc-stories-common-knowledge-library-panel

Learn More about our Guests & Series

Listen to the full conversations: Dive deeper into these stories by listening to the complete interviews in Episode 10 and the Library Panel Episode.
Explore the Series: Check out the full COVID-19 Special Series
Support the Show: Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help us continue producing these stories. Click the donate button at voicesofthecommunity.com
Signup for our Newsletter to stay in the loop on future shows and live events
Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Credits & Acknowledgments

Produced by: George Koster and Alien Boy Productions
Associate Producer, Audio & Video: Eric Estrada
Visual Design: Casey Nance of Citron Studio
Broadcast Partners: KSFP-LP 102.5 FM (San Francisco) and KPCA-LP 103.3 FM (Petaluma)
Special Thanks: BAVC Media for the initial collaboration on the SF Non-Profit Spotlight.

Transcript

Full transcripts and video episodes are available on our website and YouTube channel.

Website:https://georgekoster.com/voc-c19-highlight-show-part-4-libraries-transcript
YouTube: George Koster

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Covid-19's Impact on Housing & Wrap Around Services Highlights Part 3

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 00:03:04 +0000

“We were able to open our tiny house village during the pandemic and have 26 young people move in off the street and into housing." - Sally Hindman, Founder & Executive Director, Youth Spirit Artworks

3 Main Takeaways on Solutions

1.Guaranteed Income Works-Programs like **Miracle Money** and the **New Leaf Project** show that direct cash support helps unhoused individuals secure housing faster, save money, and meet basic needs—while reducing emergency service use and public costs.

2.Wraparound Services Matter-Housing is most effective when paired with case management, behavioral health care, employment support, childcare, harm reduction, and social connection—creating stability that lasts.

3.Community-Led Responses-Alternative response teams and peer-led initiatives such as *Street Sheet* replace criminalization with dignity, trust, and solutions rooted in lived experience.

Go to the visit our episode web page to engage in supporting the organizations who support our unhoused neighbors.

Guest Names and Organizations

•Kevin Adler - Founder & CEO, Miracle Messages

•Jen Roy - Miracle Messages Volunteer

•Ray - Miracle Money Program Participant

•Shannon Eizenga - Executive Director, Gubbio Project at St. Boniface Church

•Mary Kate Bacalao - Compass Family Services

•Mark Slater - Raphael House

•Ceci Ferber - Raphael House

•Jennifer Friedenbach - Executive Director, Coalition on Homelessness

•Quiver Watts - Editor, Street Sheet

•Sally Hindman - Founder & Executive Director, Youth Spirit Artworks

•Wendy Click - Manager of Outreach, Hospitality House

•Janet Williams - Hospitality House

•Joe Wilson - Hospitality House

•Alan Gutierrez - Manager of Housing Subsidy Programs, San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing

•Beth Stokes - Executive Director, Episcopal Community Services

•Jugal Patel - Housing Subsidy Recipient

•Dr. Jiyang Zhao - Lead Researcher, Foundations for Social Change

•Heather Hayes - Foundations for Social Change

🎧 Listen now | 💬 Get involved!

Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Covid 19's Impact on our Communities Highlights Part 2 - Food Security & Basic Needs

Sat, 22 Nov 2025 21:52:18 +0000

“Before the pandemic, one in four San Francisco families struggled with food security; after, four out of ten Black and Latinx families are struggling.” - Kenneth Kim, Senior Director of Programs, GLIDE

Drawn from our 105-episode COVID-19 series, this conversation revisits the early months of the global pandemic—and connects them to today’s hunger crisis intensified by government shutdowns and SNAP cuts. Frontline leaders describe building pop-up pantries in days, serving thousands of outdoor meals, scaling home-delivered food for seniors, and standing up mobile hygiene and hotel-based shelters for unhoused neighbors.

You’ll hear from:

SF-Marin Food Bank, Redwood Empire Food Bank & Meals on Wheels SF
Glide Memorial Church & St. Anthony’s
Simply the Basics, Lava Mae X & Hayes Valley Bakeworks
Community Forward SF, Tipping Point & Project Homeless Connect

Key themes:

Demand outpacing supply across food and hygiene services
Seniors, families, and communities of color on the front lines of hunger
How “radical hospitality” and one-stop hubs restore dignity and trust

🎧 Listen now | 💬 Get involved!

For more information, guest details, and resources from this episode, visit our episode web page

Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Covid-19’s Impact on Our Communities Highlights Part 1 - Small Businesses

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 07:00:00 +0000

"I think that people forget that. These small businesses, they're the ones that are sponsoring your sports teams, which are helping with school things, and that are doing fundraisers that are giving back to the community all the time." - Rebecca Bertoldi

When COVID-19 hit, we launched a series to spotlight the small businesses that sustain our communities. Five years on, many are still rebuilding. This highlight episode revisits candid conversations with policymakers, advisors, and owners about what truly helped—and what must happen next.

Top Problems

Financing gaps & collapsing revenue put leases, payroll, and inventory at risk.
Technology barriers slowed the pivot to online sales and services.
Minimal cash reserves left micro and solo enterprises exposed.

Top Solutions

SBA pathways: PPP (including second draw), EIDL working capital, and SBA debt relief that covered principal and interest for existing borrowers.
Hands-on technical assistance: devices, training, and coaching to move operations online and reach customers.
Community-led purchasing: direct takeout, gift cards, curated boxes, catering, and pop-ups to keep dollars local.

Show Guests

Julie Clowes, District Director, Small Business Administration's San Francisco District Office
Tim Russell, Program Director, Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center
Sharon Miller, Chief Executive Officer, Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center
Pierre Coeurdeuil, Director of Advising & Education, SFMade
Amanda Fried, Chief of Policy and Communications, Treasurer for the City and County of San Francisco
Adam Fowler, founding partner, CVL Economics
Kristin Houk Owner of All Good Pizza, TATO, Café Alma
Rebecca Bertoldi, Rebecca Bertoldi Marketing
Pooja Rajani, Director of Programs, En 2 Action
Laurie Thomas, Executive Director, Golden Gate Restaurant Association
Shannon Walter, Manager, Blue Plate SF
Jeff Trenam, Owner, Blue Plate SF
Michelle Pusateri, Owner, Nana Joes Granola
Andrea Baker, Founder, En 2 Action

Show Hosts

Eric Estrada / Co-Host/ VOC
George Koster/Producer/Host Voices of the Community

Why listen
You’ll hear what it really took to survive: from emergency capital and city tax relief to e-commerce pivots and neighborhood solidarity. Owners share the stress, the ingenuity, and the lessons they want every community to remember.

Take action
After you listen, do one thing to strengthen your local economy:
• Order direct from neighborhood restaurants and makers (skip third-party delivery when you can).
• Buy gift cards or curated boxes, book local catering for meetings and events.
• Donate or volunteer with the support organizations featured in this episode.
• Share this episode with a friend who loves small businesses as much as you do.

🎧 Listen now | 📺 Watch the episodes | 💬 Get involved!

For more information, guest details, and resources from this episode, visit our episode web page

Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

”Beyond Bankruptcy”: The Fight For Stockton - Highlights Part 2

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 15:00:00 +0000

“We talk about that nihilistic mindset… what it means to grow up in a community that has that mindset and how that affects them. You have to be honest with them, though, that this is real. This is why y’all are dying.” - Anthony Rodriguez

Part two features Barbara Albertson, Michael Tubbs, youth panelists, and educators discussing Stockton's remarkable transformation from America's most miserable city through genuine community engagement, crime reduction strategies, educational reform, and grassroots organizing efforts.

Episode Guests:

Barb Alberson—Senior Deputy Director for Policy & Planning, San Joaquin County Public Health Service
Michael Tubbs—Former Mayor, City of Stockton
Brandon Leake—Founder & CEO, Called To Move
Tama Brisbane, co-founder & director, WOW Inc.
Anthony Rodriguez—Teacher, Marshall Elementary School, Instructor, Summer Success & Leadership Academy
Rhodesia Ransom, co-founder of Sow A Seed, California Assembly Person for the 13th Assembly District
Tafari Lee—Youth Leader, Stockton
Tyla Lovely Cotton—Youth Leader, Stockton
Johnny Barrios—Youth Leader, Stockton

Hosts:

Eric Estrada (associate producer),
George Koster (creator, series host)
Michael Fitzgerald (Stockton Town Hall host and retired Stockton Record reporter)

Your voice matters! Support these Stockton nonprofits featured in this highlight episode along with the entire documentary series! They are vital for economic growth, community health, and empowering future leaders. Watch, listen, and share this crucial episode with your networks, local officials, and community development funders.

🎧 Listen now | 📺 Watch the episodes | 💬 Get involved!

For more information, guest details, and resources from this episode, visit our episode web page.

Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

”Beyond Bankruptcy”: The Fight For Stockton - Highlights Part 1

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 01:07:37 +0000

“No one’s coming to save us; we have to figure this out ourselves.” — Dillon Delvo

Reinvention in Stockton starts with people. Family, faith, and Black history shape young leaders; high expectations and visible role models invite the whole community to “come together.” Mentorship turns promise into pathways: Phoenix Scholars supports first-gen, low-income students through applications, scholarships, and personal statements, building generational opportunity. Meanwhile, grassroots coalitions coordinate across safety, health, blight, cultural preservation, housing, and inclusion—proving that cross-sector collaboration can lift South Stockton and create momentum for the city at large.

Episode Guests

Racole Dixon (mother of Michael Tubbs)
Barbara Nicholson (grandmother of Michael Tubbs)
Tasha Dixon (aunt of Michael Tubbs)
Dr. Rebekah Fenton (physician; Phoenix Scholars co-founder with Michael Tubbs)
Nicholas Hatten—Founder/Executive Director, San Joaquin Pride Center
Fred Sheil—Administrator, STAND (Substance abusers Taking Action to Neutralize Drugs)
Dillon Delvo—Co-Founder & Executive Director, Little Manila Rising
Jasmine Dellafosse—Founding Member, Reinvent South Stockton Coalition

Hosts: Eric Estrada (associate producer), George Koster (creator, series host) and Nick McClendon (associate producer/interviewer)

Your voice matters! Support these Stockton nonprofits! They are vital for economic growth, community health, and empowering future leaders. Watch, listen, and share this crucial episode with your networks, local officials, and arts funders.

🎧 Listen now | 📺 Watch the episodes | 💬 Get involved!

For more information, guest details, and resources from this episode, visit our episode web page. Dive deeper into these vital discussions and access the California Arts & Culture Summit Resource Guide today

Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

CA Arts & Culture Summit - “Highlights Show Part 2”

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 15:30:00 +0000

"Artists are entitled, just like every other worker, to a livable, predictable, sustainable wage." – Jennifer Laine, San Benito County Arts Council

In this powerful season finale, guests explore five urgent themes—economic power of the arts, youth-led civic engagement, cultural equity, legislative reform, and creative healing. From museum-building to policy change and correctional programs, they reveal how arts work fuels systemic solutions and community transformation across California.

Show Guests:

+Jackie Melendez-Assistant City Manager, City of Chino

+Tracy Hudak-Director of Field Engagement,California for the Arts

+Josiah Bruny-CEO,Music Changing Lives

+Danielle Brazell-Executive Director,California Arts Council (CAC)

+Kristen Sakoda-Director, Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture

+Jennifer Laine-Executive Director, San Benito County Arts Council & President of California Arts Advocates

+Shira Lane-Founding Executive Director, Atrium 916

+Dr. Meghna Bhat-Founder,Gula Stories

+Ruben Reveles, Futuristic Chicanx Artist

+Alex Gallardo Valdeolivar-AIC Coordinator/ Instructor, Arts Council of Kern

+ Eric Estrada, Co-Host, Assoc Producer, Voices of the Community

+ Eduardo Robles: Summit Roaming Reporter, California for the Arts and Voices of the Community

+ George Koster: Creator, Host, Producer, Voices of the Community

Your voice matters! Support the arts now! They are vital for economic growth, community health, and empowering future leaders. Watch, listen, and share this crucial episode with your networks, local officials, and arts funders.

🎧 Listen now | 📺 Watch the episodes | 💬 Get involved!

Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

Delve deeper into Voices of the Community Series on Arts & Culture, Making the Invisible-Visible, Covid-19's impact on nonprofits, small businesses and local government, City of Stockton's rise from the ashes of bankruptcy and our archives: You can explore episodes, speakers, organizations, and resources through each series web page. Watch, Listen and Engage in all five series now!

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

CA Arts & Culture Summit - “Highlights Show Part 1”

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 14:30:00 +0000

"I have been used, abused and silenced within the nonprofit industrial complex... I'm not gonna take it anymore... I'm gonna get mine and my community's gonna get there's this year" - Nikko Kimzin, Kimzin Creative

In Part One of season two of Where Art Meets Impact highlight episode. This episode features inspiring voices from the 2024 California Arts and Culture Summit, which highlights, how artists and advocates tackle three major issues: legitimizing creative careers as real work, integrating arts into health systems, and empowering economic justice through entrepreneurship and guaranteed income. Learn how intentional funding, narrative shifts, and artist-led collaborations are creating systemic change.

Guests Include:

+ Julie Baker: CEO of California for the Arts

+ Nataki Garrett: Co-artistic Director of One Nation, One Project

+ Chris Appleton: Founder and CEO of Arts Pharmacy

+ Dr. Indre Viskontas: Cognitive Neuroscientist, Scientist, Communicator, Opera Singer and Stage Director

+ Dr. Tasha Golden: Director of Research for the International Arts Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University.

+ Tamaira “Miss Tee” Sandifer-CEO & Founder, Studio T Arts & Entertainment

+ Nikko Kimzin: Founder, Kimzin Creative, an LLC

+ Jamie Hand: Director of Strategic Impact and Narrative Change at Creatives Rebuild New York

+ Nurit Siegal Smith: Executive Director, Music Forward Foundation

+ Marcus Mitchell: Public Administrator, the City of West Hollywood's Arts

+ Eric Estrada, Co-Host, Assoc Producer, Voices of the Community

+ Eduardo Robles: Summit Roaming Reporter, California for the Arts and Voices of the Community

+ George Koster: Creator, Host, Producer, Voices of the Community

🎧 Listen now | 📺 Watch the episodes | 💬 Get involved!

Don't just be a listener; Be a doer!

Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

State of the Arts Summit Highlights Part 2

Wed, 14 May 2025 15:00:00 +0000

"When the community comes together, organizes, advocates, makes noise, and has a plan, we can change systems” - Richard Raya

Join host George Koster for part two of our Arts for a Better Bay Area highlights as ten visionary guests tackle some of the big issues facing San Francisco and our arts organizations and creative workforce; Such as downtown vacancies, converting offices into affordable artist homes, changing Hotel Tax Funding of the arts via reforms ensuring transparent hotel‑tax dollars, and showcasing the impact of arts in economic development of neighborhoods like the Mid‑Market along with providing direct grants to artists that revive the city’s cultural heartbeat.

Guests:

Joshua Simon, Senior Advisor, Community Arts Stabilization Trust
Kathryn Reasoner, Executive Consultant, Vital Arts
Richard Raya, Chief Strategy Officer, Mission Economic Development Agency
Fernando Pujals, Deputy Director,Mid‑Market Business Association
Jacob Bintliff, Mgr of Economic Recovery Initiatives, SF Office of Economic & Workforce Development
Laura Poppiti, Program Director, Center for Cultural Innovation
Meredith Winner, Co-Founder & COO, Building 180/Paint the Void
Joe Landini, Director / Founder, SafeHouse Arts
Vinay Patel, Executive Director, Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center
Denise Pate, Director Community Investments, SF Arts Commission

Don't just be a listener; Be a doer!

Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

State of the Arts Summit Highlights - Part 1

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 20:00:00 +0000

We must disrupt and rebuild; our task is to shift how society thinks through art” - Ralph Remington

Part one of this special episode, in collaboration with Arts for a Better Bay Area, delves into the discussions and insights from the 2023 State of the Arts and Culture Organization Summit. Host Eric Estrada and summit reporter Isa Nakazawa bring you the voices of key panelists and attendees who are shaping the future of the arts in the Bay Area.

Guests:

Maria Jenson, Creative and Executive Director, SOMARTS Cultural Center
Ralph Remington, Director of Cultural Affairs, San Francisco Arts Commission
Jonathan Moscone, Executive Director, California Arts Council
Jenny Cohn, Client Success Manager of TRG
Jeff Jones, Co-founder, Queer Cultural Center
Vallie Brown, Director of the City of San Francisco’s Grants for the Arts
Cary McClelland,Chief Operating Officer & Registered In-House Counsel - YBCA

Don't just listen – get involved!

Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

"Breaking Isolation: Arts as a Community Solution"

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:00:00 +0000

Arts Equity, Advocacy, Impact

"Artists, cultural bearers, creatives are essential contributors to the economy… so that arts are not a luxury, arts are not a hobby" – Ron Muriera

This episode of Where Art Meets Impact features Kristen Sakota, Michael Alexander, Ron Muriera, Meghna Bhat, and Josiah Bruny, discussing arts advocacy, economic empowerment, storytelling, arts and health, and youth leadership. They offer solutions including increasing arts funding, strengthening community engagement, advocating for policy change, empowering youth through creative leadership, and integrating the arts into healthcare. Tune in to learn how these leaders are shaping the future of arts and culture in our communities.

Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Newsletter: Sign up

to stay updated on future episodes and events

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Creative Equity: "Building Sustainable Futures for Artists and Communities"

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 18:00:00 +0000

"Artists must be at the center of decision-making, shaping policies and funding structures that directly impact their work and their communities” - Nataki Garrett

Show Guests

Tiara Amar
- Title: Advocate for Art Workers’ Rights
- Key Points:
  - Advocates for fair pay and professional protections for musicians.
  - Highlights the Fair Play Initiative for setting pay minimums.
  - Showcases transformative impact through grassroots campaigns and fellowship programs.
Nurit Smith
- Title: Executive Director, Music Forward Foundation
- Key Points:
  - Stresses the importance of aligning education with industry needs.
  - Advocates for holistic creative economy education, including entrepreneurship and business skills.
  - Explores solutions for workforce development and advocacy.
Nataki Garrett
- Title: Keynote Speaker and Arts Policy Advocate
- Key Points:
  - Discusses sustainable funding models for arts organizations.
  - Emphasizes access and inclusivity in creative spaces.
  - Highlights the transformative role of artists in policy and advocacy.

Three Ways You Can Support the Work of our Guests:

Advocate for fair pay and professional protections for artists by engaging with local policymakers and supporting initiatives like the Fair Play Campaign.
Partner with organizations championing creative economy education to help bridge the gap between education and industry.
Support place-keeping initiatives by investing in community-based projects and amplifying the voices of local artists.

Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.
Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Making the Invisible Visible - Finding Home Part 2

Sat, 14 Dec 2024 18:00:00 +0000

“So, if people need potable water, then we need to provide them with that. Or if people are looking for a job that we don't need to categorize that. We can start to put away our own judgment and provide them with the opportunity that they're putting in front of us versus us telling them, no, no, you need to go get treatment before you get a job”- Mary Carl

In Part Two of our “Finding Home” Live Show, experts and those with lived experience discuss the complexities of homelessness in San Francisco; Along with solutions, focusing on the urgent need for safe housing, community collaboration, and long-term investment to create lasting impact and stability for those affected.

Host: George Koster Guests: Sammie Rayner - Community Forward, Meghan Freebeck - Simply the Basics, Lydia Bransten - The Gubbio Project, Mary Carl - Miracle Messages, Erica Kisch - Compass Family Services

Key Highlights and Takeaways from the Panel Discussion:

Long-Term Solutions: Experts emphasize the importance of long-term investment in stable housing and community services, particularly for vulnerable populations like women and older adults.
Safety and Dignity: Safety is a central concern, with a focus on ensuring safe spaces for those experiencing homelessness, and not just offering shelter, but the right kind of support.
Coalition-Building: Collaboration between organizations, government, and the community is essential for creating a comprehensive and sustainable approach to addressing homelessness.

Three Things you can do to support our unhoused neighbors:

Donate or Volunteer: Support the organizations featured in the discussion by donating or offering your time to help those experiencing homelessness
Advocate for Funding: Encourage local policymakers to support and fund long-term housing solutions, like Proposition A, to create permanent housing and safer environments for all.
Join Community Initiatives: Participate in local initiatives to provide services such as hygiene kits, food, and shelter for those in need, and help bridge gaps in services.

Connect with us:

Watch, Listen & Discover: Visit our Finding Home Series Page
Donate to help us continue to make shows like this one:
Subscribe to our e-newsletter to find out more about each show topic and participating in live shows:
YouTube: Watch this episode on our YouTube channel
Feedback: Share your thoughts and show ideas at george@georgekoster.com

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Harnessing the Power of Arts: Advocacy, Equity, and Community Transformation

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 18:00:00 +0000

"For the first time, we are centering artists in our work with an equity-centered, artist-centered cultural plan... with a big emphasis on affordable housing and live-workspace for artists” - Jonathon Glus, City of San Diego

In this engaging episode of Voices of the Community, we spotlight transformative policy wins and the visions shaping the future of California's arts and culture sector. Recorded live at the second annual California Arts and Culture Summit in Sacramento, this episode features highlights from a dynamic PechaKucha-style panel discussion moderated by Jennifer Laine, Executive Director of the San Benito County Arts Council.

Jennifer and fellow arts leaders explore local and statewide victories, including Measure P in Fresno, the California Creative Corps, and pioneering collaborations with California State Parks. These stories showcase how advocacy, cross-sector partnerships, and data-driven strategies can elevate the creative economy and inspire meaningful change.

Join us as we discuss key insights from the summit and actionable steps for empowering artists and cultural organizations to tackle pressing issues like equity, climate resilience, and workforce development.

Watch, Listen and Discover how you can support and shape the future of the creative economy!

- Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Stay Connected:

- Participate: Join our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event.

- YouTube: Watch this episode on our YouTube channel

- Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Making the Invisible Visible - Finding Home Part 1

Sat, 9 Nov 2024 14:00:00 +0000

"Our philosophy is simple: without rest, there is no healing. We open our doors so that people can have a safe space to rest, restoring a basic dignity often lost on the streets.”- Lydia Bransten

In Finding Home, host George Koster speaks with leaders from San Francisco-based organizations committed to supporting unhoused residents. This insightful conversation highlights the unique challenges and solutions surrounding homelessness, especially in a post-pandemic environment.

Featured Guests: Mary Carl – Executive Director, Miracle Messages, Sammie Rayner – Co-Chief Executive, Community Forward SF, Erica Kisch – CEO, Compass Family Services, Meghan Freebeck – Director, Simply the Basics, Lydia Bransten – Executive Director, The Gubbio Project .

Key Topics Discussed:

1. Innovative Programs - How these organizations are working on programs for family reunification, safe spaces for vulnerable populations, and essential resources like hygiene products.

2. Post-Pandemic Challenges - The panel discusses increased demand, funding struggles, and legal changes impacting support for the unhoused.

3. Successful Solutions - Efforts like "miracle friends" that connect housed and unhoused individuals, universal basic income (UBI) pilots, and the importance of basic income as a support tool for stability.

Listener Actions:

- Volunteer in peer-support programs.

- Advocate for policies supporting UBI and housing.

- Support and expand safe spaces and shelters.

Highlights and Takeaways:

- Programs that restore dignity, offer stability, and strengthen community.

- Community involvement is crucial for sustainable solutions.

Connect with us:

- Watch, Listen & Discover: Visit our Finding Home Part 1 Episode Page

- Donate to help us continue to make shows like this one:

- Subscribe to our e-newsletter to find out more about each show topic and participating in live shows:

- YouTube: Watch this episode on our YouTube channel

- Feedback: Share your thoughts and show ideas at george@georgekoster.com

This episode emphasizes how local organizations and community members can work together to address homelessness and create lasting change.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Building Better Bridges in the Arts Economy - Case Making for Collaboration

Sat, 26 Oct 2024 17:00:00 +0000

"It’s really important for arts advocates and tradition bearers, artists, and cultural organizations to participate in the visioning and guiding principle process in your community plan, to get named in the vision statement of the community" - Tracy Hudak

Join Tracy Hudak, Director of Field Engagement for California for the Arts, and Jackie Melendez, Assistant City Manager of the City of Chino, for an insightful discussion in "Casemaking for Collaboration." This episode explores the intersection of arts advocacy, economic development, and urban planning.

Discover how artists, cultural organizations, and advocates can effectively engage with local governments to ensure that arts are recognized as a vital part of inclusive economic development and community growth. You'll learn practical tools and strategies for making a compelling case for arts and culture as essential contributors to a region’s economic vitality and quality of life.

Watch, Listen and Discover how you can support and shape the future of the creative economy!

- Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Stay Connected:

- Participate: Join our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event.

- YouTube: Watch this episode on our YouTube channel

- Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

- Feedback: Share your thoughts and show ideas at george@georgekoster.com.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Discover the Future of Creative Work!

Sat, 14 Sep 2024 16:45:00 +0000

"We’re living through the greatest art heist of all time. Billions of images, data, and content were scraped illegally, impacting creative jobs, and AI is at the forefront of this transformation." - Nicole Hendrix

The creative economy is at a crossroads, grappling with issues of fair pay, technological disruption, and access to resources. The panelists in this insightful discussion offer solutions and strategies for artists and advocates to navigate these challenges and build a more sustainable and equitable future for the creative sector.

As part of our co-production partnership with California for the Arts 2nd Annual State of the Arts summit in April 2024 we bring you a panel of subject matter experts which features Moderator: Nurit Siegel Smith the Executive Director of the Music Forward Foundation with our Panelists: Nicole Hendrix the Co-Founder, BRIC Foundation & Concept Art Association, Marcus Mitchell Public Art Administrator, for the City of West Hollywood; and Tiara Amar the Advocacy & Fellows, of Whippoorwill Arts; along with Jamie Hand the Director of Strategic Impact and Narrative Change for Creatives Rebuild New York

Watch, Listen and Discover how you can support and shape the future of the creative economy!

- Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Stay Connected:

- Participate: Join our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event.

- YouTube: Watch this episode on our YouTube channel

- Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

- Feedback: Share your thoughts and show ideas at george@georgekoster.com.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Voices of Change: "The Intersection of Art, Equity, & Economic Empowerment"

Sat, 17 Aug 2024 17:00:00 +0000

“So if you have not tapped into community members that you are serving, that you are working with, then you are missing a large, piece of the solution to your problems”. - Heather Heslep

Gentrification, displacement, the struggle for ownership... these are the challenges faced by many communities today. But what if art could be the key to preserving cultural heritage and building economic resilience?

The panel discussion features Tamaira “Miss Tee” Sandifer, CEO & Founder of Studio T Arts & Entertainment, Arianna Chavez, Executive Director at Arte Americas, Roshaun Davis, Executive Director of CLTRE and Co-Founder of Unseen Heroes, and Heather Heslup, Director of Public Art Programs at Destination Crenshaw along with Nikko Kimzin, CEO + Lead Consultant at Kimzin Creative. Join us as we explore the challenges faced by marginalized communities in the arts and the importance of place keeping, ownership, and wealth redistribution.

- Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Stay Connected:

- Participate: Join our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event.

- YouTube: Watch this episode on our YouTube channel

- Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

- Feedback: Share your thoughts and show ideas at george@georgekoster.com.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

CA Arts & Culture Summit "Arts and Health" panel

Sat, 13 Jul 2024 17:00:00 +0000

"At the structural level, we don’t make decisions based on evidence. If we did, we would have universal healthcare and basic income. The arts can be part of this shift” - Tasha Golden

Join Nefesha Yisra’el from California for the Arts as she introduces our second episode, featuring a powerful panel discussion on the intersection of arts and health. This episode is part of our exclusive interview series with California for the Arts and their second annual State of the Arts Summit.

Featured Speakers:

Moderator: Deborah Cullinan, Vice President for the Arts at Stanford University

Panelists:

- Chris Appleton, Founder and CEO of Art Pharmacy

- Dr. Tasha Golden, Director of Research at Johns Hopkins' International Arts and Mind Lab

- Dr. Indre Viskontas, Cognitive Neuroscientist and Opera Stage Director

Episode Highlights:

- Explore the transformative power of art on prescription.

- Discover evidence-based impacts of arts on well-being.

- Learn about innovative programs like Stanford's Art Pharmacy.

- Gain practical insights into integrating arts into healthcare.

Take Action to Support our Arts:

- Watch & Listen Now: Don’t miss this essential conversation for artists, healthcare providers, and advocates.

- Support the Speakers: Learn more about their organizations and programs on our episode landing page [Eric, I will send you this as soon as Kasey brings the page live]

- Make a Donation: Support Voices of the Community, fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and enjoy tax deductions for your contributions.

Stay Connected:

- Participate: Join our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event.

- YouTube: Watch this episode on our YouTube channel

- Newsletter: Sign up to stay updated on future episodes and events

- Feedback: Share your thoughts and show ideas at george@georgekoster.com.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The Future of Arts & Culture in California: Keynote Insights from the California Arts & Culture Summit

Sat, 1 Jun 2024 19:05:22 +0000

"Together we can create a world where arts and culture are recognized and invested in as essential to society, embedded in community life, and intersecting with broader policy change to reshape systems towards equity and justice." - Julie Baker

Join us as we kick off our second season, celebrating the vibrant and resilient arts and culture scene that shape our community. This season, we bring you highlights from the second annual California Arts & Culture Summit, organized by our partner California for the Arts, with the theme "Art Work is Real Work."

In our premiere episode, don't miss the inspiring opening ceremony and keynote sessions with Nefesha Yisra'el the Director of Programs from California for the Arts, Leticia Rhi Buckley, the CEO for LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, Julie Baker, the CEO for both California for the Arts and California Arts Advocates along with keynote speaker Nataki Garrett the Co-Artistic Director of One Nation / One Project Arts for Every Body. They delve into the critical topics of advocacy, cultural equity, artist support, and the transformative power of the arts in promoting health and empathy.

Tune in and discover the economic significance of the arts and the urgent need for sustained funding. Be inspired by stories of how art addresses societal issues and fosters a more empathetic world.

To find out more information about our guests and their respective organization’s programs, and services, how to volunteer and make a donation please visit our episode landing page with links to resources for the arts and culture sector. And if you have been enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and review on the podcast platform of your choice

We welcome your participation in our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event. You can also watch this episode on our YouTube Channel and please Sign Up for our Newsletter to stay up to date on future episodes and to participate in our next live show. We would love to hear from you with feedback and show ideas, so send us an email to george@georgekoster.com

Please consider donating to Voices of the Community - Voices of the Community is fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, that allows us to offer you tax deductions for your contributions. Please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Discover the Artist Space Trust: Unlocking the Future of Housing for Creatives!

Wed, 3 Apr 2024 15:00:00 +0000

"The interesting thing about a Land Trust is that it's a split title, we'll split the title and the land trust will own the land forever. And then we'll either sell or lease the housing or creative space on top of it to artists" - Meg Shiffler

Welcome to the finale of our series on affordable housing for the creative workforce, brought to you in partnership with Arts for a Better Bay Area and the State of the Arts Summit. This episode is the culmination of our journey, featuring innovative solutions and inspirational figures from the creative world.

Join us as we delve into the heart of the ABBA summit with “Housing for the Artist Workforce: Revisiting Artists’ Housing Solutions.” Discover a pioneering pilot program that empowers artist property owners to leave a lasting legacy for the artistic community through a novel real estate trust model.

Meg Shiffler, the esteemed Director of the Artist Space Trust, graces us once again with her presence, offering profound insights into the Trust’s mission, its vital role in protecting artists’ legacies, and how creatives can actively participate in shaping their futures.

But that’s not all! Our exclusive interviews from the ABBA summit, conducted by our insightful reporters Isa Nakazawa and Eric Estrada, will transport you to the heart of the action. We’ll revisit conversations with influential figures like Kathryn Reasoner, a visionary in the arts, and Chun Yu, a poet and co-founder of the Two Languages One Community project, who infuse the summit with their innovative spirits and groundbreaking work.

Don't miss out on this captivating conclusion to our series – our co-production with Arts for a Better Bay Area through their State of the Arts Summit. a tribute to the power of creativity and collaboration in building sustainable futures for artists.

To discover more about our guests and their impactful work, including programs, services, volunteer opportunities, and donation options, visit Voices Of The Community dot com. Navigate to the Arts and Culture Series page and locate Episode Ten.

For additional insights on housing, revisit Episode Four of the arts and culture series to hear Meg and Kathryn discuss affordable housing for the creative workforce. You can explore the initiatives of Vital Arts and The Northern California Land Trust in Episode Seventy, from our special series focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on our nonprofit sector. And Don't miss Chun Yu's captivating poetry in Episode Two of our arts and culture series.

Throughout this series, co-produced with Arts for a Better Bay Area, we've immersed ourselves in the challenges and triumphs of our arts and culture sector. From the lingering effects of the pandemic to inspiring stories of resilience, we've seen the struggles and the incredible solutions being forged.

We hope you've gained a deeper understanding of the issues artists and organizations face: rising housing costs, lack of workforce support, and persistent undervaluing of their work. But we've also witnessed the power of creativity in driving economic revitalization, promoting health and well-being, and building stronger communities.

The good news is, YOU can be a part of the solution. Here's how:

Support Arts Organizations: Attend performances, exhibitions, and events. Spread the word about the incredible work they do.
Advocate for Artists: Contact your elected officials and let them know that supporting the creative workforce is vital to a thriving community.
Donate or Volunteer: Offer your time or resources to organizations making a difference in the arts and culture sector.
Spread the Word: Use your voice on social media to amplify arts events and initiatives.

The State of the Arts Summit sparked powerful dialogues. Let's keep the conversation going and work together to create a vibrant future for arts and culture in our communities. Because when the arts thrive, we all thrive. Thank you for joining us on this journey. Together, we can make a difference.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

How to Buy Your Performance Space | CAST & CounterPulse Real Estate Model

Sat, 16 Mar 2024 17:00:00 +0000

"The resilience that we have to live through booms and busts and pandemics and continue to serve the community, continue to drive foot traffic, continue to create economic opportunities for local people to have jobs and work and express themselves is just incredible. So if you're struggling with a storefront or a vacancy or empty space, just remember to think about the arts” - Julie Phelps

In this episode, we delve into our special series that charts the resurgence of the arts and culture sector from the shadows of the COVID-19 pandemic. We're bringing together insights from the Co-Production of Arts for A Better Bay Area State of The Arts Summit, an event that unfolded at the Strand Theatre in San Francisco on June 28th, 2023. The summit cast a spotlight on revitalizing our communities through the lens of the arts. A standout session at the summit tackled a pressing issue: securing affordable housing for our artistic community.

Emerging from the discussions at the ABBA summit on affordable housing and real estate was a captivating dialogue on utilizing the shifts in the market post-pandemic to enable arts and cultural organizations to secure their own venues for performances.

To shed light on this promising avenue, we're joined by Julie Phelps, the Artistic and Executive Director of CounterPulse, and Joshua Simon, a Senior Advisor at the Community Arts Stabilization Trust. They will unpack an inventive real estate strategy that empowered CounterPulse to purchase their performance space—an approach that holds transformative potential for the arts sector across the country. Welcome to Voices of the Community, a platform where every conversation spark innovation, and every voice is valued.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

REP-SF’s Citywide People’s Plan for Affordable Housing

Thu, 22 Feb 2024 01:30:00 +0000

“It's about forcing the city to make sure that they build affordable housing. And there's lots of, programs that we have in the Citywide People's Plan that can make, huge steps towards, building affordable housing” - Dyan Ruiz

This episode is part of our ongoing Special Series on How the Arts and Culture sector is coming back from the covid 19 pandemic. In our co-production of Arts for A Better Bay Area’s [ABBA] State of the Arts Summit on June 28th 2023 one of the breakout sessions was focused on the work in our community to develop affordable housing for our creative workforce.

The summit breakout panel discussion on “Housing for the Artist Workforce: Revisiting Artists’ Housing” is featured in episode four of this series. We received a lot of feedback from ABBA's State of the Arts Summit attendees that they wished the session on affordable housing was longer and they could spend more time diving into the work being done.

Based on this feedback we have created three follow up episodes focused on three of the topics that were discussed in the arts for a better bay area’s state of the arts summit affordable housing session. This episode is focused on the Race & Equity in all Planning of San Francisco [REP-SF] coalition’s work to create the Citywide People’s Plan for affordable housing in San Francisco and features the voices of the co-founder and reporter of people power media Dyan Ruiz and the President and Resident Chair of Calle 24 Latino Cultural District Erick Arguello.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Proposition E, 2018 & Arts Impact Endowment Update & Discussion & Grants For The Arts

Sat, 27 Jan 2024 08:30:00 +0000

"I think the action and the continuity of the coalition from Prop S to Prop E went from 40 organizations to 140 organizations. That was something that was huge” - Vin Seaman

In this seventh episode of our series focusing on the arts and culture sector's recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, we bring you highlights from the Co-Production of Arts For A Better Bay Area (ABBA) State of The Arts Summit, held at the Strand Theatre in San Francisco on June 28th, 2023. The summit centered around rebuilding communities through the arts.

This episode features a community conversation from the ABBA Summit, discussing the status of Proposition E from 2018, the Arts Impact Endowment, and Grants for the Arts. Our panel includes voices from:

- Joe Landini, Founder and Director of Giving at Safe House Arts
- Vinay Patel, Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center
- Denise Pate, Director of Community Investments for the San Francisco Arts Commission

The second part of our discussion features an interview with ABBA Summit attendee, Shrey Purohit an artist and cultural worker at Arts Span; Along with a One on One Interview with Vallie Brown, the Director of the City of San Francisco’s Grants For The Arts, along with our wonderful co-host Isa Nakazawa, the Director of Community Engagement of BAVC Media.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

How Do Community Based Arts Orgs Secure Sustainable Funding?

Wed, 20 Dec 2023 20:00:00 +0000

“Bringing the scale of human life to the community again so that we can kind of start seeing our humanity and our everyday Experiences” - Melissa Abercrombie

This episode is from our November 4th 2023 live event co-production with the Petaluma Arts Center, our broadcast partners KPCA 103.3fm and Petaluma Community Access TV and BAVC Media. This special event was focused on exploring the question, “How Do Community Based Arts Organizations Secure Sustainable Funding?” Our wonderful panel and audience members covered sub topics such as Exploring Different Business Models, Hybrid Productions - Live and Streaming, bringing arts organizations and government committees to support artists along with ideas around creating a fund endowment.

The event included our panel conversation along with questions and lively conversation with our audience, all with the focus of bringing our community together in support of the arts. The panel features the voices of:

- Llisa Demtrios, the President of the Board Petaluma Arts Center;

- Melissa Abercrombie, the Chair of the Petaluma Pubic Art Committee;

- Diane Dragoine, the Executive Director of Cinnabar Theatre;

- Juliet Pokorny, the co-founder of West Side Stories Petaluma

We welcome your participation in our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event. You can also watch this episode and please Sign Up for our Newsletter to stay up to date on future episodes and to participate in our next live show. We would love to hear from you with feedback and show ideas, so send us an email to george@georgekoster.com.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Meredith Winner - Paint the Void & Lyzette Wanzer - Author of Trauma, Tresses & Truth

Wed, 6 Dec 2023 16:00:00 +0000

“I think really being open minded and also really trusting artists is a really big, important factor because. Artists know what they're doing, at least when it comes to making the artwork, that's why people hire them and allow them to have the most creative freedom as possible, really. Usually allows the project to be as best as it can be or as good as it can be” - Meredith Winner

This episode is the long form of our one-on-one interview with Meredith Winner the COO and Co-Founder of Building 180 and Managing Director and Co-Founder of Paint the Void. Meredith shares how her team at Building 180 provides support agency services to artists to provide projects and good-paying work as well as through Paint the Void works with artists and local government to utilize art as economic and community development change agents.

As part of our great roving reporter team of Isa Nakazawa and Eric Estrada at the Arts For A Better Bay Area State of The Arts Summit; this episode includes an interview with Lyzette Wanzer the author of Trauma, Tresses & Truth "Untangling our Hair Through Personal Narrative". Lyzette also was part of the planning and production team of the ABBA State of the Arts Summit. Lyzette shares with us about the planning of the Summit along with her insights into how both artists and arts organizations need the support of our government, funders, and each other.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Fernando Pujals & Rachel Osajima- How their using the Arts for Economic & Community Development

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 16:00:00 +0000

"So of course, the pandemic was a struggle for all of us, and so we all know the arts organizations are the first to close and last open, especially the performing arts are really still struggling" - Rachel Osajima

This episode is the long form of our one-on-one interview with Fernando Pujals, the Deputy Director of the Mid-Market Business Association & Foundation and a great deep dive into how he and his team our supporting artists, arts organizations and leveraging the power of the arts to help bring back the Mid-Market neighborhood in our post pandemic world.

As part of our great roving reporter team of Isa Nakazawa and Eric Estrada at the Arts For A Better Bay Area State of The Arts Summit; this episode includes an interview with Rachel Osajima who serves as the Executive Director of the Alameda County Arts Commission, which is a division of the County of Alameda. Rachel provides us with some wonderful insights into how a funder has continued to support artists and arts organizations through the pandemic and in the post pandemic marketplace.

To find out more information about our guests and their respective organization’s programs, and services, how to volunteer and make a donation please visit our episode landing page with links to resources for the arts and culture sector. And if you have been enjoying the show please leave us a rating and review on the podcast platform of your choice

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Regional Economic Recovery Through the Arts

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 17:30:00 +0000

"There's been a lot of talk about, how do you make this sustainable, and there's not one answer, but one piece that is core to that, is really galvanizing and cementing around this notion that arts and culture is already right here and we need to lean into it and value it and uplift it. And in that way it won't be able to be ignored'“ - Fernando Pujas

This episode is part of our special series on how the arts and culture sector is coming back from the covid 19 pandemic and features voices from the Co-Production of Arts For A Better Bay Area State of The Arts Summit held at the Strand Theatre in San Francisco on June 28th 2023. The focus of the summit was on rebuilding our communities through the arts.

This episode features panelists from our breakout panel discussion “Regional Economic Recovery Through the Arts" on how the Arts are being utilized in economic and community development coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic. The panel features the voices of Laura Poppiti, the Deputy Director of the Center for Cultural Innovation, Richard Raya, the Chief Strategy Officer at Mission Economic Development Agency, Fernando Pujals, the Deputy Director of the Mid-Market Business Association & Foundation, Meredith Winner, the co-founder and COO of Building 180 and Managing Director and Co-Founder of Paint the Voice, and Jacob Bintliff, the Manager of Economic Recovery Initiatives at the City of San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development along with our co-host Susie McKinnon a Steward at Arts for a Better Bay Area.

To find out more information about our guests and their respective organization’s programs, and services, how to volunteer and make a donation please visit our episode landing page with links to resources for the arts and culture sector. And if you have been enjoying the show please leave us a rating and review on the podcast platform of your choice

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Revisiting Artists’ Housing Solutions

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 22:37:36 +0000

"So looking at how do we build an ecology where affordable housing isn't just a place you stay, it's a place you stay and work and build a business and raise a family and, you know, build the economic resources,for the next step. " - Josh Simon

This episode is part of our special series on how the arts and culture sector is coming back from the Covid 19 pandemic and features voices from our co-production of Arts For a Better Bay Area’s State Of The Arts Summit on June 28th 2023. The focus of the summit was how artists and arts organizations are adapting in a post pandemic marketplace along with the economic developmental power of our arts and culture economy in rebuilding our communities.

This episode features our panelists from our breakout session “Housing for the Artist Workforce: Revisiting Artists’ Housing Solutions” Kathryn Reasoner, Executive Consultant with Vital Arts, Mark Morrisette, the Facilities Director at Berkeley Repertory Theater, Joshua Simon, a Senior Advisor at the Community Arts Stabilization Trust, Ian Winters, the Director of Incubation and Special Projects at the Northern California Land Trust, and Meg Shiffler, the Director of Artists Space Trust, along with Julie Baker, the CEO of Californians for the Arts and California Arts Advocates.

We hope that you enjoyed episode four of our new seven-part series highlighting the issues and solutions of our arts and culture organizations and their workforce as they innovate to come back from the pandemic along with addressing the systemic racism in our performing arts ecosystem.,

We welcome your participation in our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event on November 4th at the Petaluma Arts Center from 2pm to 4pm. Register for FREE

Y2 pm4 pmou can tune into our usual radio show, podcast, and television show with our friends at BAVC Media. Sign Up for our Newsletter to participate in our next live show

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Ralph Remington of San Francisco Arts Commission - Interview at Arts for a Better Bay Area State of the Arts Summit

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 18:30:00 +0000

“One of the things that I, would say to this community coming from a repressed community is let’s turn to each other, not on each other. Let’s bond together, and find our commonality, not our differences. Because the enemy, I’ve seen the enemy in Arizona, and it is not us. So when we have small differences with each other, let’s recognize them for what that is, and let’s stop this San Francisco bickering that we’re famous for, and killing each other over really tiny differences. And let’s bond together over the big stuff because the big stuff is coming and it’s here and it’s big and hairy and gross and we need everybody’s power and participation to disrupt these evil forces.” - Ralph Remington

This interview with Ralph Remington is part of our co-production with Arts for a Better Bay Area of the re-launch of the State of the Arts Summit on June 28th, 2023. You can watch the wonderful interview conducted by our roaming reporter team of Isa Nakazawa our co-host and associate producer Eric Estrada.

You can listen to the full episode features the opening and keynote speakers made up of community leaders, poets, artists, administrators, government officials, and representatives from arts and culture organizations; who share their wonderful insights and recommendations on the rebuilding of our communities through the arts. With Arts for a Better Bay Area's State of the Arts Summit theme, "Rebuilding Our Communities," our opening and keynote speakers below explore collective ways the arts community can develop and bridge supportive connections as we emerge from the pandemic. To find out more information about our guests and their respective organization’s programs, and services, how to volunteer and make a donation please visit our episode landing page with links to resources for the arts and culture sector.

We hope that you enjoyed episode two of our new six-part series highlighting the issues and solutions of our arts and culture organizations and their workforce as they innovate to come back from the pandemic along with addressing the systemic racism in our performing arts ecosystem.

We welcome your participation in our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event. Our next community dialogue will be streamed as well as you can tune into our usual radio show, podcast, and television show with our friends at BAVC Media. Sign Up for our Newsletter to participate in our next live show

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Arts for a Better Bay Area State of the Arts Summit – “Economic Recovery in the Arts: Regaining Patrons and Artistic Engagement” Ep 3

Sat, 9 Sep 2023 17:45:00 +0000

"It's all about partnering artists with small businesses to create site specific installations and that way create more exposure both for the business and for the artists and also to revitalize those corridors" - Vanessa Wilson

This is our second episode from the co-production with Arts for a Better Bay Area of the re-launch of the State of the Arts Summit "Rebuilding Our Communities," on June 28th, 2023.

The COVID-19 pandemic shined a spotlight on the importance of arts and culture and its impact on our communities and economy, as well as the under-funding and fragility of our sector. Our second episode is focused on how governmental support, funding, artists, and audiences have changed and what arts and cultural organizations are doing to support, reinvent, and invigorate the sector. Join us to learn about various angles of this work and how you can get engaged.

This episode features Julie Baker, CEO - of Californians for the Arts; Vanessa Wilson, Deputy Director - of ArtSpan; Lauren Macmadu, Head of External Relations - of YBCA; Jenny Cohn, Client Success Manager - of TRG Arts along with Cary McClelland, Chief Operating Officer - of YBCA.

You can watch this episode as part of our television show with our friends at BAVC Media. To receive more information on the State of the Arts Series please Sign Up for our Newsletter to find out more about each episode as well as to participate in our next live show.

We hope that you enjoyed episode three of our new six-part series highlighting the issues and solutions of our arts and culture organizations and their workforce as they innovate to come back from the pandemic along with addressing the systemic racism in our performing arts ecosystem.

If you've been enjoying the show please leave us a rating and review on the podcast platform of your choice and we’d love to hear from you with feedback and show ideas, so send us an email to george@georgekoster.com

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Maria Jensen of SOMARTS Cultural Center - Interview at Arts for a Better Bay Area State of the Arts Summit

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 17:14:35 +0000

“This is a time when the art community's creative expertise and skills and talents are being relied upon. And finally, really seen as major contributors to the local economy.” – Maria Jensen

This interview with Maria Jensen is part of our co-production with Arts for a Better Bay Area of the re-launch of the State of the Arts Summit on June 28th, 2023. You can watch the wonderful interview conducted by our roaming reporter team of Isa NakazawaJensen Jensenand Eric Estrada.

We welcome your participation in our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event. Our next community dialogue will be streamed as well as you can tune into our usual radio show, podcast, and television show with our friends atBAVC Media. Sign Up for our Newsletter to participate in our next live show

Please consider donating to Voices of the Community - Voices of the Community is fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which allows us to offer you tax deductions for your contributions. Please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one.that

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Jonathan Moscone Interview at Arts for a Better Bay Area State of the Arts Summit

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 22:20:46 +0000

"A clean city is not what San Francisco is. San Francisco is a messy city. It’s politically messy, it’s diverse. It fights amongst itself. It is San Francisco and it’s never not gonna be. So, let’s lean into the right kind of messy of San Francisco and artists can get messy. So, let’s get messy." — Jonathan Moscone, Executive Director,California Arts Council

This interview with Jonathan Moscone is part of our co-production with Arts for a Better Bay Area of the re-launch of the State of the Arts Summit on June 28th, 2023. You can watch the wonderful interview conducted by our roaming reporter team of Isa Nakazawa and Eric Estrada.

We welcome your participation in our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event. Our next community dialogue will be streamed as well as you can tune into our usual radio show, podcast, and television show with our friends atBAVC Media. Sign Up for our Newsletter to participate in our next live show

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Arts for a Better Bay Area State of the Arts Summit - Opening & Keynotes Ep 2

Sat, 5 Aug 2023 17:00:00 +0000

“This is a time when the art community's creative expertise and skills and talents are being relied upon. And finally, really seen as major contributors to the local economy.” – Maria Jensen

This is our first episode from the co-production with Arts for a Better Bay Area of the re-launch of the State of the Arts Summit on June 28th, 2023 . This episode features the opening and keynote speakers made up of community leaders, poets, artists, administrators, government officials, and representatives from arts and culture organizations; who share their wonderful insights and recommendations on the rebuilding of our communities through the arts. With Arts for a Better Bay Area's State of the Arts Summit theme, "Rebuilding Our Communities," our opening and keynote speakers below explore collective ways the arts community can develop and bridge supportive connections as we emerge from the pandemic. To find out more information about our guests and their respective organization’s programs, and services, how to volunteer and make a donation please visit our episode landing page with links to resources for the arts and culture sector.

Show Guests

Honey Mahoney / Co-Founder Compton’s Transgender Cultural District
Lyzette Wanzer / Writer/Author
Michael Warr & Chun Yu/ Poets
Susie McKinnon/ Executive Director/ ABBA
Maria Jenson / Creative and Executive Director, SOMArts Cultural Center
Ralph Remington / Director of Cultural Affairs, SFAC
Jonathan Moscone, Executive Director, California Arts Council

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

“The State of Our Arts & Culture Organizations” - Ep 1 Board & Governance

Sat, 15 Apr 2023 16:00:00 +0000

"We wanna incentivize and give board love too. I think the board is often like the scary people or viewed as the scary people behind the curtains that are doing the work or maybe overseeing or assessing” - Michelle “Mush” Lee, Youth Speaks

Our first episode of the special series titled "Insights for Building Your Nonprofit Arts and Culture Board" features these three exceptional nonprofit arts and culture leaders, doing big ambitious things with their Boards:

• Michelle "Mush" Lee, Executive Director, Youth Speaks

• Julie Phelps, Executive Director, Counterpulse

• Meredith Suttles, Managing Director/CEO,Marin Theatre Company

In addition, this episode also features Jay Mitchell, professor of law and the founding director of the Organizations and Transactions Clinic at Stanford Law School who shares his expert insights and advice on the best practices of nonprofit governance and my co-host Paula Arrigoni the Executive Director of BAVC Media

To find out more information about our guests and their respective organization’s programs, and services, how to volunteer and make a donation please visit their websites for Youth Speaks go to youth speaks dot org for Counter Pulse go to counterpulse dot org for Marin Theater go to marin theatre dot org and for the Organizations and Transactions Clinic at Stanford Law School go to law dot stanford dot edu

We hope that you enjoyed episode one of our new six-part series highlighting the issues and solutions of our arts and culture organizations and their workforce as they innovate to come back from the pandemic along with addressing the systemic racism in our performing arts ecosystem.

We welcome your participation in our next virtual and live in-person community dialogue event that will be focused on audience development through exploring new and different business models that have come out of the pandemic. Our next community dialogue will be streamed as well as you can tune into our usual radio show, podcast, and television show with our friends at BAVC Media. Sign Up for our Newsletter to participate in our next live show

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Foundations for Social Change

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 16:00:00 +0000

"There's still a lot of public resistance to the idea of giving people in homelessness cash, because, the public doesn't trust people in poverty or people in homelessness, I think that has to be corrected and addressed" - Dr. Jiaying Zhao

One of the topics we have focused on through our special Covid-19 series is our unhoused neighbors' lives by organizations and governments experimenting with providing cash transfers to unhoused community members. We are finishing up our special series on Covid-19’s impact on our nonprofits, small businesses, and local governments with this very informative and insightful interview with Foundations for Social Change. Foundations for Social Change were the first organization in North America to develop a research project to study the impact on our unhoused neighbors' lives by providing cash transfers to un-housed community members.

In this episode, we feature the voices of the Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Department of Psychology Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia Dr. Jiaying Zhao, along with the Director of the New Leaf Project Heather Hay and the LEAP Co-Chair and Peer Coordinator Ray Bonnetrouge

To review the first study and to find out more and support the work of Foundations For Social Change please go to for social change dot org

You can find out more about the work of nonprofits working with our unhoused neighbors featured over the last 3 years in this series by going to our Covid-19 and San Francisco Nonprofits series.

And to find out more information about the first program to provide cash transfers to community members in the United States the City of Stockton please go to our Stockton’s Rise From Bankruptcy and go to Episode 12 The Rose that Grew from Concrete

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

San Francisco's Department of Homelessness & Supportive Housing

Sat, 14 Jan 2023 18:00:00 +0000

“I volunteer at a safe sober space. I serve on the board of a retreat for healing that happens once a year. I serve on the Board of StartOut which helps LGBTQ + entrepreneurs gain access to mentorship and resources and fundraising to increase our representation as founders of companies. I will always do this work, because these are the same kind of organizations that empowered me to have the life I lead today.” Jugal Patel

Throughout this special series on covid-19’s impact on our nonprofits, small businesses and local governments we have heard from numerous voices who continue to show up in a pandemic to support our unhoused community members. They have shared with you all the wonderful solutions that our nonprofits and local governments are working on to help reduce the number of our neighbors who find themselves un-housed.

As we enter 2023 and the third year of the covid-19 pandemic we wanted to hear from one of our government departments about the housing and wrap around support services they are providing to our unhoused neighbors. In this episode we feature the voices of the executive director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing for the City and County of San Francisco, Shireen McSpadden, the Manager of Housing Subsidy Programs at the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, Alan Guttirez along with a participant in the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing Flex Housing Pool program Jugal Patel as well as the Executive Director of Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco, Beth Stokes.

To find out more about the flex housing pool program along with other housing and wrap around support services that the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing for the City and County of San Francisco provides please go to h s h dot org

And for more information about all of the wrap around services that the Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco provides and to make a donation please go to e c s dash s f dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Miracle Money Pilot Program Update

Wed, 7 Dec 2022 16:00:00 +0000

“It breaks my heart as a mother and a teacher almost the, majority of people who are unhoused are families with children. Sleeping in cars, sleeping in garages, and that these families, these moms and dads, aunts and uncles, they work, but again, they can't get enough together to secure safe and affordable housing”-Elizabeth Softky

Welcome to our annual holiday show and fundraiser. As we bring this year and our special series on Covid-19’s impact on nonprofits to a close, we wanted to go back to Episode One in the series when we introduced you to Miracle Messages and in Episode 75 when we introduced you to Miracle Message’s Miracle Money.

In our 102 episode of this special Covid-19 series we are featuring the voices of the CEO of Miracle Messages, Kevin Adler, and Miracle Messages general manager of Los Angeles Jenni Taylor along with Miracle Money Program participant Elizabeth Softky. Photo of Episode Note: The photo is Elizabeth and her Miracle Messages Phone Buddy Joan

To donate to the holiday miracle money fund to provide funds directly to our unhoused community members please go to miracle messages dot org forward slash donate and remember I'm matching up to $2,500.00, so you can double your donation

You can listen back to episode one in our special series to hear about the background of Miracle Messages with Kevin and to find out more about the success of the Miracle Money program and its impact on our unhoused community members please listen back to episode seventy-five of this series where we feature the voices of Ray, Jen and Kevin.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

SKYWATCHERS Ensemble

Sat, 3 Dec 2022 16:00:00 +0000

"It’s the chemistry of people, who come from very different backgrounds, you have gay, transgender, straight, and different talents and different abilities coming together and making this music and magic"-Shavonne Allen

This episode features the voices of the founder of ABD Productions and the Sky Watchers Ensemble program, Anne Bluethenthal, along with the members of the Sky Watcher Ensemble, Shavonne Allen and Joel Yates who share about the power of people, from very different backgrounds coming together to make music and magic

To find out more about Skywatchers ensemble annual homeless person memorial vigil, watch the trailer and setup a screening of the 10th anniversary documentary film, and make a donation along with volunteering please go to a b d productions dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Election 2022 - California & San Francisco Propositions Explained

Sun, 30 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

“We provide education to encourage people to vote and participate in government”-Michelle Moritz

Welcome to our 2022 Election Show. Given all the propositions on both a State of California level as well as the usual too many propositions to understand on the City of San Francisco level we wanted to bring together two wonderful subject matter experts to help us better understand both the Pros and Cons of both State and City propositions.

Our Elections 2022 show features the voices of two wonderful subject matter experts to help us better understand both the Pros and Cons of both State and City propositions - Michelle Moritz the Speakers Bureau Chair of the League of Women Voters of San Francisco and Madison Alvarado a Reporter and the Co-Creator of the San Francisco Public Press Election Guide.

In support of the wonderful insights of both Michelle and Madison we wanted to make sure you all had the following Election 2022 Resources to deep dive into the dozens of State of California and City/County of San Francisco Propositions

League of Women Voters - Resources -According to Michelle the League of Women Voters has provided a series of tools to help you get ready to vote for both the State of California and the City and County of San Francisco propositions. Please do a deep dive into these great resources to get out and vote.

+ City and County of San Francisco Pro and Con Guide

+ State of California Voters Edge Tool - Just type in your zip code or your address and provides information about propositions, candidates and allows you to create a test ballot to get organized and ready to actually fill out your real ballot.

The San Francisco Public Press - Resources -According to Madison The San Francisco Public Press team has both written and audio versions of in-depth analysis of every San Francisco measure that's on the ballot. Please do a deep dive into these great resources to get out and vote.

+ Nonpartisan Voter Guide Overview

+ Voter Guide with audio interviews

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The Red Shades - A Trans Super Hero Rock Opera & Z Space

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 15:00:00 +0000

“The Compton, Cafeteria Riots and Felicia Elizondo's life living in the Tenderloin in the 1960s and trans sex workers who were fighting for their right to survive, connected with the ideas that were coming out of my mind”-Adrienne Price

In this our one hundredth episode of our special series on the impact of the ongoing covid-19 pandemic on our nonprofit's small businesses and local government, we reached back out to folks at Z Space to share with you how they have struggled through the pandemic to bring you a very unique show The Red Shades: A Trans Superhero Rock Opera

In this episode we feature the voices of Adrienne Price, the writer and co-composer of The Red Shades: A Trans Superhero Rock Opera along with Rose Oser, the Interim Producing Director of Z Space and Lead Producer of The Red Shades who share with us their 7-year journey to bring The Red Shades to Life at ZSPACE

To find out more about the Red Shades show, to purchase tickets, and make a donation please go to z space dot org forward slash red shades. You can find out more about ZSPACE and Word for Word by listening to Shafer Mazow and Rose Oser in episode 12 and to find out more about the work of Word for Word hear from the co-founders Susan Harloe and JoAnne Winter in episode 8

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The Reinvention of Downtown San Francisco Part 3

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 15:00:00 +0000

“I think the, first one that stood out to me is unlike some other cities, the San Francisco city government, is not pushing for these downtown office to housing conversions”- Sarah Wright

This is part three of our three episodes exploring how the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting San Francisco's downtown neighborhood and economy along with the efforts to address the issues in the reinvention of downtown San Francisco. As downtown San Francisco continues to struggle to come back from the Covid-19 pandemic one of the ideas that is being discussed is to convert office buildings into housing to address San Francisco’s decades long affordable housing crisis.

We wanted to dig deeper into this idea of converting offices into housing and explore all of the issues of making this happen in San Francisco along with examples of other cities who have actually converted offices to housing. Our guests also tell us about the State of California’s pressure on San Francisco’s government to build more housing since according to California’s Department of Housing and Community Development, San Francisco is the slowest jurisdiction in the state to move housing projects to construction.

In this episode we feature the voices of two local reporters Sarah Wright and Kevin Truong from the San Francisco Standard who have done in-depth reporting on the office to housing conversion along with issues facing our housing, and business sectors.

To read Sarah Wright’s reporting on housing and transportation please go to sf standard dot com / author / sarah-wright/

And to read Kevin Truong’s reporting on both business and recovery policy please go to sf standard dot com / author / kevin-truong/

To hear part one of our three stories on downtown San Francisco which featured the voices of Christ Wright from Advance SF and Jeff Bellisario from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute please listen to episode 95 . And to hear part two of the series which features the voices of Noah Arroyo from the San Francisco Chronicle and Anna Tong from The San Francisco Standard please listen to episode 98

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The Reinvention of Downtown San Francisco Part 2

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 15:00:00 +0000

“San Francisco’s tax structures are incentivizing companies to, in some cases just move entirely out of San Francisco”-Anna Tong

This is part two of the three stories we are covering on how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the downtown of San Francisco and the efforts to address the issues and the reinvention of downtown San Francisco.

In this episode we feature the voices of two local reporters Anna Tong from the San Francisco Standard and Noah Arroyo from the San Francisco Chronicle who are doing some interesting and informative reporting on all of the issues plaguing downtown San Francisco as well as some of the efforts by business, nonprofits and the government to address the issues.

To read Anna Tong’s great reporting on downtown san francisco as well as her other reporting on the many issues and topics impacting san francisco please go to sf standard dot com / author / anna-tong/

And to read Noah Arroyo’s great reporting on both downtown and what is next for san francisco through the SF Next series please go to sf chronicle dot com / author / noah-arroyo/

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Flower Piano - Music for Plants and People in a Park

Wed, 14 Sep 2022 17:36:10 +0000

“I always say that music is a healthy thing that we do. It's something that we strongly believe that even the flowers and the plants and the trees really enjoy having music being played for them”-Mauro ffortissimo

One of the topics we’ve covered in our two plus years of producing this special series on the Covid-19 Pandemic’s impact on our community is the impact the pandemic is having on our live performing arts organizations. This episode features the voices behind the annual Flower Piano show in Golden Gate Park’s Botanical Garden.

Our featured voices are the Gardens of Golden Gate Park CEO Stephanie Linder along with the Co-Founders of Sunset Piano Dean Mermell and Mauro ffortissimo. To find out more about the flower piano show, and, to become a sponsor or just buy tickets for the ticketed events please go to s f b g dot org. And to find out more about Sunset Piano and their wonderful documentary film twelve pianos please go to sunset piano dot com

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Mission Asset Fund - How Finance Changes Lives

Sat, 3 Sep 2022 17:00:00 +0000

“We heard of neighbors helping neighbors, of people dropping off food on their friends’ doorsteps, of mutual aid groups, of people becoming champions and ambassadors in their community and, showing the way to access resources and support”-Elena Fairley

As millions of families accessed and received billions of dollars of financial support from the US Federal Coronavirus Relief CARES Act Fund, millions of immigrant families were excluded from federal COVID-19 relief. Find out in our latest episode about how Mission Asset Fund [MAF] stepped up to create financial programs and support to help stabilize thousands of immigrant families in our community.

In this episode our featured voices are the co-founder and CEO José Quiñonez, Elena Fairley, Director of Programs and Efrain Segundo, Financial Education and Engagement Manager from Mission Asset Fund. They will share with us how their community-centered approach works to meet clients where they are and create programs that build on what is good and true in their lives.

To find out more about Mission Asset Fund’s services and to support their work that provides financial services to the thousands of un-banked families and micro-enterprises in our community please go to mission asset fund dot org

You can also find out more about how the city of San Francisco is supporting our un-banked community members by visiting the San Francisco office of financial empowerment at s f gov dot org forward slash o f e

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The Reinvention of Downtown San Francisco Part 1

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 15:00:00 +0000

"I think that there is a recognition that we're all interconnected and that this area is important. It's essential for, the City and the region. I think that there is a, great opportunity for all these groups to come together and to build something great." - Chris Wright

This episode focuses on the impact the COVID 19 pandemic is still having on the city of San Francisco's downtown community area. Along with this businesses workers and visitors, the city of San Francisco, along with businesses and community leaders have developed studies plans and funding to attempt to reinvent the downtown San Francisco community. We've invited two thought leaders to share with you their work to address these issues and how you can get engaged.

Our guests for this episode are the Vice President of Advance SF, Chris Wright, and the Executive Director of The Bay Area Council Economic Institute Jeff Bellisario.

You can read copies of both the Middle Wage Jobs Report and the recommendations along with the results from the San Francisco Survey at advance sf dot org

To read all of the research and recommendations from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute research and policy documents go to bay area economy dot org

For more information about the city of san francisco’s economic core recovery initiative go to s f mayor dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Roots Community Health Center- Healing our Community Within

Sat, 30 Jul 2022 19:00:00 +0000

"We are taking charge of our community. And Dr. Aboelata has coined this phrase years ago, healing our community from within. And we do have to look into ourselves to help heal what ills our communities"-Aquil Naji

Over the past two-plus years, our community health care centers have faced many challenges in an ever-changing landscape, forcing them to adapt and evolve their outreach and delivery of both health care and comprehensive wrap-around support services to the most at-risk members of our community.

Welcome to our hour plus special discussion on the importance of our community health care centers and how they are being impacted by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. In this episode we are featuring the voices and work of the award-winning Founder Noha Aboelata, MD, Chief Operations Officer Aquil Naji, and staff member Ky'Tavia Stafford-Carreker of Roots Community Health Center. They will share with us how their work addresses the root causes of health and economic disparities for people impacted by systemic inequities, as well as how their work is improving outcomes for people impacted by these systemic inequities.

You can become a volunteer, mentor, or employer by emailing admin at roots clinic dot org. To find out more about Roots Community Health Center’s services, along with the impact of their work in our community and to make a donation please go to roots clinic dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

San Francisco Mime Troupe - "Back to the Way Things Were"

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 12:00:00 +0000

“Zoe is grappling with how to be an adult or starting to be an adult in a world in which she feels, there's not really a space for her to imagine a future”- Alicia MP Nelson as Zoe

In this episode, we are following back up with The San Francisco Mime Troupe who we interviewed two years ago in episode four. Back in June of 2020 with the beginning of the pandemic, Michael Gene Sullivan shared with us that the San Francisco Mime Troupe was canceling its annual summer live show performances in public parks and their work to create and launch a series of radio plays which air on KSFP 102.5FM.

Michael also participated in our virtual live group discussion with 6 performing arts organizations about the production of live shows. This was in episode eighty-three in September of 2021 when the Covid -19 Delta variant was waning, and the hope was bringing back live performances. We all know what happened with the wave of omicron that hit our performing arts organizations.

Join us now as we check back in with Michael and Alicia to tell us about the new Musical show "Back to The Way Things Were" and bringing back live performances at our public parks. Here is the schedule of summer shows. Get engaged with the San Francisco Mime Troupe as a volunteer, and funder to support their work by going to their web site S F M T dot org

Please consider donating to Voices of the Community - Voices of the Community is now fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which allows us to offer you tax deductions for your contributions. Please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

CalNonprofits Policy & Legislation

Wed, 4 May 2022 15:00:00 +0000

"CalNonprofits was pushing for relief for the sector and contract flexibility so that we could be as responsive as possible to our communities while they were dealing with the pandemic”- Lucy Salcido Carter

We know from our interview in January 2021 with Jacob Harold and Anna Koob of Candid that from their extensive study they estimated that over 4 thousand nonprofits in California could go out of business from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. This conversation led us to wonder want the status and health of nonprofits were in California and in turn our interview in May 2021 with Lucy Salcido-Carter and Christina Dragonetti with CalNonprofits to share with us their work to support nonprofits.

Given all of the federal and state funding flowing through the State of California Legislature and the Governor’s offices, we wanted to check back in with Lucy Salcido-Carter to update us on all of their public policy work to assure that our nonprofits secure funding and resources to enable them to both stabilize and recover stronger as we come out of the pandemic economy.

To become a member and make a donation to support the work of CalNonprofits please go to cal non profits dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Arts & Culture as Economic Drivers in Our Communities

Fri, 15 Apr 2022 15:00:00 +0000

“First responders save lives; second responders help put people’s lives back together. Artists are essential workers in our society and our economy, helping us recover, reflect, and rebuild”-Julie Baker

This episode is focused on the importance and economic impact of the arts, culture and artists on both our economy and our communities. We are hosting a panel of guests from the San Francisco Arts Commission, Californians for the Arts and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

According to a March 2022 report by the the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2020, arts and culture added $876.7 billion, or 4.2 percent, to our national GDP. With the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, between 2019 and 2020, the U.S. arts economy shrank at nearly twice the rate of the economy as a whole: arts and cultural production fell by 6.4 percent when adjusted for inflation, compared with a 3.4 decline in the overall economy. Between 2019 and 2020, the arts economy shed more than 604,000 workers—not counting self-employed artists and other cultural workers.

On a state level, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis report, arts and cultural production accounts for over $225 billion dollars of value to the California economy or around 7.5% and contributes over 680 thousand jobs.

On a local level, the findings from the March 2021 study conducted by the Bay Area Council economic institute on the economic and social impact of the arts in San Francisco; [pause] found that in fiscal year 2019, San Francisco nonprofit arts organizations generated $945 million in economic output, which supported 9,657 jobs.

To make a donation, volunteer, and support the work of Californians for the Arts please go to californians for the arts dot org.

To find out more about the San Francisco Arts Commission's work to support our arts economy through grants, bid opportunities, becoming an art vendor, and Ralph’s work to diversify the commission’s work please go to s f arts commission dot org

And to find out more about the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts along with Jason’s community investment work through the Artists Power Center please go to y b c a dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Redwood Empire Food Bank

Fri, 1 Apr 2022 15:00:00 +0000

It's just understanding that, life is tenuous. Life is hard and, sometimes people need help and it's all okay - David Goodman

Over the past two years of producing this special series, we have brought you stories from nonprofits working on some of our long-term social issues such as homelessness, housing, hygiene, and mental health. In this one-hour-long special show, we wanted to turn our focus back to food insecurity for children families, and seniors. Since the Covid-19 pandemic breakout in March of 2020, food insecurity has increased dramatically. According to Feeding America, in the state of California, the overall food insecurity rate for 2021 was projected to be 12 percent which is four hundred and eighty-four thousand people who are food insecure on any given day. CalFresh is the California version of the old federal food stamp program and their numbers show that CalFresh recipients in San Francisco increased by 42% from November 2019 to November 2021.

This episode is focused on the work of the Redwood Empire Food Bank which provides one of the most basic needs food, along with wraparound services to our San Francisco North Bay and Northern California community members. Our featured guests are: Chief Executive Officer, David Goodman, Director of Programs, Alison Goodwin along with food bank services, recipient and volunteer Sam Cagle, as well as Programs Coordinator, Juana Renovato. To make a donation, volunteer, and support the work of the Redwood Empire Food Bank please go to R E F B dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Drag Show to End Homelessness

Wed, 2 Mar 2022 20:03:38 +0000

“They want housing to allow them to build their lives up from there…” - Poly Pop-Tart

At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, we featured Sammie Rayner and Community Forward SF’s work in episode 5 and with our unhoused trans-gender, LGBTQ, and people female-identify community members.

In this episode, we bring Sammie back along with Felicia Torrez from Community Forward SF and Poly Pop-Tart a Drag Queen, Stand Up Comedian & Performer to focus on Community Forward SF’s upcoming Drag Show to End Homelessness“Stepping Out”

According to a 2020 National Alliance to End Homelessness point in time count The number of adult transgender individuals experiencing homelessness increased 88 percent since 2016 and the number experiencing unsheltered homelessness increased 113 percent during the same period. Transgender individuals are disproportionately unsheltered. Sixty-three percent are living in such situations. For comparison, 49 percent of cisgender people experiencing homelessness are unsheltered. The National Center for Transgender Equality estimates that one in five transgender individuals have experienced homelessness at some point in their lives.

To purchase tickets or to become a sponsor for the Drag Show to End Homelessness “Stepping Out” go to community forward sf dot org and click on get involved. You can make a donation and find out more about Community Forward SF’s housing, programs and services at community forward sf dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Oral Lee Brown Foundation

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 22:00:00 +0000

"We have to give them something to do. You know, if you're just sitting there and this is what you see, this is who you become..." - Phyllis Opara

Welcome to our one-hour special on the importance of education especially to the low income youth in our communities. We explore how the combination of the covid-19 pandemic and economic meltdown has impacted the support services of an Oakland legacy education organization the Oral Lee Brown Foundation.

In this episode our featured voices are the Executive Director Phyllis Opara and Board of Directors member Philip Palmer along with foundation Alumni members Rotha So and Albert Jenkins. Our guests share how Miss Brown’s promise to Oakland's most at-risk youth if they stayed in school and got admitted to college she would pay for their college education has changed the lives of hundreds of children over the Oral Lee Brown Foundation’s 30 plus years of operation.

We hope that you enjoyed this One Hour Special Show focused on education and the importance of one person’s vision to help youth to go to college and how this help in turn changes their lives. To make a donation, volunteer, and support the work of the Oral Lee Brown Foundation please go to oral lee brown foundation dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Resources for Community Development

Wed, 26 Jan 2022 16:00:00 +0000

"I think that housing is just fundamental and it's, unfortunately, not really a right, right now in our country" - Dan Sawislak

Since 1970 California has not been building enough housing especially affordable housing. The latest estimate of California's housing shortages ranges from 3 to 4 million housing units. This decades-long lack of housing impacts both the estimated 160 thousand unhoused Californians and the 7 million Californians living in poverty because they spend over 50 percent of their paychecks to pay for rent.

This week's episode is focused on the importance of providing affordable housing along with wrap around support services and resident empowerment to both change the lives of our fellow community members and our neighborhoods. This episode features the voices of the Executive Director of Resources for Community Development Dan Sawislak and the Director of Community Development, Breann Gala, along with resident and Secretary of the Resources for Community Development Board of Directors, Kattye Giles. To find housing, volunteer, and make donations please go to R C D Housing dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Blue Heart & APIENC (API Equality - Northern California)

Wed, 8 Dec 2021 16:00:00 +0000

"If there is anything that I've seen transformed in the past 19 months, is that more and more people are unwilling to accept what we previously accepted as normal."- Yuan Wang

In this episode, our featured voices are the co-founder and director of Blue Heart Lindley, Mease and co-director of a APIENC Yuan Wang.

This episode is focused on sharing the work of two grassroots organizations Blue Heart which empowers individual funders through their efforts of identifying and funding under resourced organizations such as APINK who works with our Asian American and Pacific Islander Trans, Queer & working class BIPOC [Black Indigenous and People of Color] community members.

To become a member, volunteer and fund Blue Heart’s work please go to blue heart action dot org. To find out more and support APIENC’s work with our Asian American and Pacific Islander Trans, Queer and working class BIPOC [Black Indigenous and People of Color] community members go to APIENC dot org.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Hospitality House

Wed, 1 Dec 2021 16:00:00 +0000

"We believe in investing in the real potential of every individual in the community" - Joe Wilson

In this episode our featured voices are the Executive Director of Hospitality House Joe Wilson, the Director of Community Engagement of Hospitality House Windy Click and the Manager of Hospitality House’s Community Arts Program Janet Williams.

Hospitality House is a San Francisco based nonprofit that is focused on working with our un-housed community members through providing wrap around support services staffed with formerly un-housed and incarcerated persons. In addition to highlighting their work and solutions we wanted to feature their unique Community Arts Program which sees art as both an agent of healing and change. To find out more about Hospitality House, to sign up to become a volunteer, donate funds and art supplies please go to Hospitality House dot org.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

How Small Businesses are using Digital Marketing and Community Engagement in a Pandemic

Fri, 29 Oct 2021 23:00:00 +0000

"It's really about connecting with your community and knowing the people around you that want you to survive and in turn supporting those other small businesses". Kristin Houk, All Good Pizza, Taco, Cafe Alma

In our October 2021 One Hour Special Show co-produced with the American Marketing Association SF Chapter hear from small business owners, Michelle Pusateri (Nana Joes Granola) and Kristen Houk (All Good Pizza,TATO & Cafe Alma), and community and economic development lead, Pooja Rajani (En2Action), on what has worked, what hasn’t, and what marketing questions are still top-of-mind during this unprecedented time.

We also hear from Digital Marketing Specialist, Rebecca Bertoldi, (Rebecca Bertoldi Marketing Company) and Valerie Camarda, (Marketing Sense) Marketing Consultant with the City of San Francisco’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC), who answer audience questions and share cost-effective, digital marketing best practices that any small business owner and nonprofit executive director should consider and implement.

For more information about each of the small business organizations featured in our October 20201 One-Hour Special virtual live panel discussion you can listen to the in-depth interviews of our panelists, starting with Michelle of Nana Joes in episode 22, Kristin of All Good Pizza in episode 41, and Pooja from En2Action in episode 23. While you are on our web site please go to episode 84 to find out more about Valerie and Rebecca’s extensive backgrounds along with their business, marketing, and ecommerce consulting services and the digital marketing and e-commerce resources page.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

How Are Live Performing Arts Coming Back? Listen to our Panel Discussion

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 17:00:00 +0000

For all of us remembering that the performing arts is kind of like the town square, that everyone comes to better understand their humanity, whether it's through music or dance performance, to interpret the world as it is. And as they want it to be, and they want to see themselves.” - Michael Sullivan

Welcome to our September 2021 virtual live panel discussion show. Given the fourth wave of COVID 19's Delta variant and the ever-changing City, County, and State protocols, we wanted to check back in with six of the performing arts organizations from our series and have them share how each of their organizations is bringing back live performances or not, for the 2021 fall performing arts season.

In this episode our featured voices are the Executive Director of San Francisco Performances, Melanie Smith, the Design and Communications Director of City Arts & Lectures, Allie Washkin, the Managing Director of the San Francisco War Memorial & Performing Arts Center, John Caldon, the Executive Director of Music at Kohl Mansion, Patricia Kristof Moy, and the Board Member, writer, director and performer of The San Francisco Mime Troupe, Michael Gene Sullivan as well as co-researcher and co-author of the nation’s largest survey of performing arts workers Return to the Stage, Meg Friedman.

For more information about each of the nonprofit organizations featured on today’s one-hour special virtual live panel discussion please go to our Covid-19 special series page to listen to the in-depth interviews of our panelists, starting with City Arts and Lectures in episode 13, San Francisco Performances in episode 18, the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in episode 17, Music at Kohl Mansion in episode 40, the San Francisco Mime Troupe in episode 4 and the Return to the Stage national survey of our performing arts work force in episode 56. Also, Please sign up for our newsletter so we can keep you in the loop and you can participate in the next virtual live panel show.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Live Panel with Word for Word, LavaMaeX,Children's Book Project,Simply the Basics,SF GirlsChorus

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 12:30:00 +0000

“I feel like George has brought together the pieces of a puzzle of equity with people, your organizations are approaching it from the arts, and from hygiene and literacy, it's just, lovely to see these different nonprofits surviving in this very difficult time and doing such great work”- Risa

Our featured voices are Executive Director of Simply the Basics, Meghan Freebeck, Interim Executive Director, of the San Francisco Girls Chorus Adriana Marcial, the CEO of LavaMaeX Kris Kepler, Word for Word’s Youth Arts program coordinator Amy Prosser and the President of the Board of the Children’s Book Project Risa Schwartz.

Welcome to our one-hour special show. Going into the fall we will be producing virtual live panel discussions on a monthly basis for these one hour special shows. We are bringing together both our past guests and new guests to update our community on their latest efforts to deal with the ongoing and ever changing covid-19 pandemic’s impact on their operations and survival as well as how the community can get engaged in supporting their work.

For more information about each of the nonprofit organizations featured on today’s one hour special virtual live panel discussion please listen to the interviews with word for word in episode 8, simply the basics in episode 16, lava mae x in episode 3, children’s book project in episode 6 and the san francisco girls chorus in episode 30

We really want to hear from you in our short listener survey. Please provide us your feedback and insights

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Youth Spirits Artworks

Thu, 19 Aug 2021 12:30:00 +0000

"The Tiny Homes project was going on during the Trump administration and and during and COVID and, it was really a means of people, expressing and keeping hope alive at a time when they were not feeling so much hope" - Sally

In this episode the featured voices are the Executive Director of the Youth Spirit Artworks Sally Hindman and the Social Media Manager Reginald Gentry. We wanted to host Youth Spirits Artworks on the show because they have developed both the first tiny homes village for our unhoused youth in the east bay along with using arts and journalism skills training to provide pathways for our youths to share their voices and experiences to our region. To find out more about the youth spirit artworks arts and journalism skills training programs, their tiny home village, how to volunteer and donate please go to youth spirit art works dot org To find out more about the Youth Spirit Artworks youth lead newspaper Street Spirit go to the street spirit dot org

We really want to hear from you in our short listener survey. Please provide us your feedback and insights

To find out more about other nonprofits supporting our artists in the San Francisco Bay Area, please listen to interview with Susan Mernit along with Janey Hayes at The Crucible in Episode 31 and Justin Hoover and Karim Zelenka at Project Artivism in Episode 49

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Shipyard Trust for the Arts

Thu, 19 Aug 2021 12:00:00 +0000

"We want to expand the artists footprint and not just preserve what we have, but create more studio space for artists and make this the place where the creative people of San Francisco can thrive and afford to be" - Barbara

In this episode our focus and theme is on our artists, and how making art and community engagement is supporting the development of studio spaces to support both our artists and a more diverse community of artists. Our featured voice is the ceo and president of the Shipyard Trust for the Arts Barbara Ockel. Barbara shares with us their ongoing work to support our artists in the Bayview Hunters Point community of San Francisco and the environmental issues at the Hunters Point shipyard redevelopment project. To find out more about Shipyard Trust for the Arts’s programs, and to help our artists in the Bayview and Hunters Point community as well as to participate in the upcoming Open Studios event in October please go to ship yard trust dot org

We really want to hear from you in our short listener survey. Please provide us your feedback and insights

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

St. Anthony's

Thu, 12 Aug 2021 12:30:00 +0000

"I think there's a big learning about like the fragility and humanity and all our interactions. Right. And recognizing that we all belong to each other" - Nils

In this episode we wanted feature the voice of a legacy social service organization that’s approach to providing a hand up to our low-income and unhoused community members is that of seeing them as guests and walking with them on their journey. Over the past 70 years, St Anthony’s has been providing a holistic approach to supporting families and individuals in the Tenderloin community. Our featured voice is the Chief Executive Officer of St Anthony’s Nils Behnke. To find out more about St Anthony’s programs as well as getting engaged as a volunteer, or to donate clothing or make a donation please go to saint anthony s f dot org and to support the golden gate greenway project please go golden gate green way dot org

We really want to hear from you in our short listener survey. Please provide us your feedback and insights

Nils mentioned Lava Mae providing public showers. To find out more about lava mae we hope that you will listen back to our interview with Doniece Sandoval and Kris Kepler of LavaMaeX in episode 3. We also spoke about the Guppio Project at St Bonafice that provided sacred sleep to homeless community members until the pandemic shut it down in spring of 2020. To find out more about the Guppio Project and sacred sleep please listen to our interview with Shannon Eizenga, of The Gubbio Project in episode 7

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative

Thu, 5 Aug 2021 12:30:00 +0000

"As the San Francisco Bay Area experienced its rapid changes as the population exploded. And in some ways, even as a diversity in the bay area exploded the folks who you didn't see, in those new faces, those new careers, those new ways of being where black and brown folks, particularly legacy and long time black and brown Oaklanders"-Noni Sessions

In this episode our featured voice is the Executive Director of the East Bay, Permanent Real Estate Cooperative Noni Session. We wanted to host the east bay permanent real estate cooperative on the show because they have developed a unique grass roots model to address some of the systemic housing and community issues that have faced our communities for over the last 50 plus years. To find out more about the east bay permanent real estate cooperative programs as well as getting engaged as an investor and volunteer please go to EBPREC dot org

To find out more about other nonprofits supporting our artists, low-income community members with unique housing models, please listen back to our interview with Kathryn Reasoner and Ian Winters from Vital Arts and Northern California Land Trust in episode 70

We really want to hear from you in our short listener survey. Please provide us your feedback and insights

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Rebuilding Together San Francisco

Thu, 5 Aug 2021 12:00:00 +0000

"I think we all realize from the pandemic we all belong. We all matter. Human connection is very important and we all have to look out for each other"- Mahogany Roland

In this episode our featured voice is the Executive Director of Rebuilding Together San Francisco Mahogany Roland. In this week’s show we continue our focus and theme on housing and share voices and solutions to our long-term housing issues. Mahogany shares with us their ongoing work to support our seniors and the disabled community members to stay in their homes. To find out more about rebuilding together san francisco’s programs, to help our seniors and disabled populations, donate and volunteer please go to rebuilding together sf dot org

To find out more about other nonprofits supporting our seniors please listen to our interview with Jim Oswald with Meals on Wheels San Francisco in episode 14. As you listen to the interviews and explore the special series we started in April 2020 on Covid 19's impact on nonprofits, small businesses and local governments please check out all the episode web pages We hope that you enjoy the insights, points of view, and personal stories from the voices of these change-makers and their nonprofits.

We really want to hear from you in our short listener survey. Please provide us your feedback and insights

Please consider donating to Voices of the Community - Voices of the Community is now fiscally sponsored by Intersection for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which allows us to offer you tax deductions for your contributions. Please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows just like this one.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Coalition on Homelessness & Street Sheet Newspaper

Thu, 29 Jul 2021 15:57:58 +0000

For folks out on the streets, those who were not lucky enough to get a Shelter In Place hotel room. It's been very, very brutal, not having access to water. A lot of the food sources were cut off not being able to use bathrooms in cafes, et cetera - Jennifer Friedenbach

Our featured voices in this episode are the Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness, Jennifer Friedenbach and Street Sheet Editor, Quiver Watts. In this episode we continue with our theme in featuring voices of nonprofit community leaders who are working on solutions for our thousands of un-housed neighbors, how the pandemic has impacted their work and what solutions they see coming out of the pandemic to support their work and the un-housed community members they work with.

To find out more about other nonprofits supporting our fellow un-housed community members please listen back to these informative and insightful interviews from our past shows please go to our special series on Covid-19's impact on nonprofits, small businesses and our local governments

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Miracle Money - Direct Cash Transfer to Un-Housed People

Thu, 22 Jul 2021 12:30:00 +0000

I think sometimes people make the assumption that if someone is unhoused, there's nothing in common with someone who's housed. And that's a real misnomer because I feel like we're all, ultimately one paycheck away from being unhoused - Jen Roy

In this episode, our featured voices are the Founder and CEO of Miracle Messages, Kevin Adler, Miracle Messages Friend Program volunteer Jen Roy along with Miracle Money Program participant Ray.
The pandemic has exposed how fragile the economic health is of most American households especially our black and brown households. City of Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs was the first government leader to believe in his community members and created a privately funded universal basic income pilot called the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration. The data from the 2019 pilot showed that providing residents $500 per month that they spent on food, rent, utilities and car repairs for example helped stabilize their households. For more background on Mayor Tubbs and the pilot please listen to Episode 12 from our documentary series "Stockton’s Rise From Bankruptcy".

Mayor Tubbs has gone on to create the "Mayors for Guaranteed Income" program with Mayors from California to Georgia signing on to the program. Since Tubb’s Stockton experiment, Oakland, Marin County, San Francisco, and Santa Clara County started one to two-year universal basic income programs. The pilot programs provide participants between $500 to $1,000 guaranteed dollars every month with no strings attached. Most of these initial pilots like Tubbs’s Stockton pilot are being funded by private donations. On July 15th California lawmakers approved the nation's first state-funded guaranteed income program that once Governor Newsom signs the bill cities and counties can apply for funding to support a current pilot or a new program from the $35 million dollar fund.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Miracle Message & San Francisco Marin Food Bank Update

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 12:30:00 +0000

“These are people often who are experiencing homelessness, who use the ICU as a waiting room”- Kevin Adler

In this episode our featured voices are the Founder and CEO of Miracle Messages Kevin Adler and the Director of Community Engagement with the San Francisco Marin Food Bank Katy McKnight.

We are working on a full half hour show for next week’s KSFP broadcast on July 22nd with Kevin and two guests to discuss their pilot program Miracle Money which provides direct cash transfers to our un-housed community members. We thought it would be helpful if you had more background on Miracle Message so we’re rebroadcasting our interview with Kevin in episode one from the summer of 2020.

“Food insecurity is just one challenge that our participants face” - Katy McKnight

Our second voice is the Director of Community Engagement with the San Francisco Marin Food Bank Katy McKnight. Since the original broadcast of this interview the demand for food has continued to expand with San Francisco Marin Food Bank distributing 1 million 300 hundred thousand meals each week. The food bank is operating 27 emergency pop up pantries at schools and community centers to address the massive food in-security facing our neighbors and is distributing food to 55 to 60 thousand households. To help feed homebound seniors who used to visit San Francisco Marin Food Bank pantries for groceries they have created the Pantry at Home program to deliver food directly to nine thousand plus seniors.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Bayview Opera House

Thu, 8 Jul 2021 12:30:00 +0000

“We've definitely been listening to the needs of artists and artists of color not only opening ourselves up as a venue for them, but also making sure that we're helping them be successful out in the grand world”- Ashley

In this episode, our featured voice is the Program Manager of the Bayview Opera House Ashley Smiley.

The Bayview Opera House Ruth Williams Memorial Theatre was founded in 1989 and is one of six city-owned cultural centers operated by nonprofit arts organizations providing cultural and arts programs. The city-owned cultural venues host performances, festivals, and gallery exhibits that offer free or low-cost classes and are funded, at least in part, by the San Francisco Arts Commission. For more background on the Bayview Opera House please listen to our interview with Barbara Ockel the Executive Director in Part One of the special series Doing Business In the Bayview in the archives section of our website

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

San Francisco Radio Club

Thu, 8 Jul 2021 12:00:00 +0000

“It's for the community. We're trying to serve the community. We all live here. You know, how are we going to serve our community going forward?” - Greg

In this episode, our featured voice is the president of the San Francisco Radio Club Greg Albrecht. The San Francisco Radio Club was formed in 1909 by a handful of radio enthusiasts with the objective of exchanging messages over the air. We wanted to host the San Francisco Radio Club on the show because it is another one of our wonderful nonprofits that are supporting our community through providing emergency communication services as well as educating and training community members in amateur radio and emergency mesh operations. You can find out more about club membership here:

Greg mentions in our interview the term Ham or Hams. The actual meaning of HAM is taken from the three pioneers that helped to create what has become our global radio system. The letter H stands for Hertz from (Heinrich Hertz) who helped to develop the theory of electromagnetic waves. The letter A stands for Armstrong from (Edwin Howard Armstrong) who was successful in inventing FM (Frequency Modulation) and the letter M stands for Marconi (Gugliemo Marconi) who was the first person to transmit radio signals across the Atlantic Ocean in 1901. There's a Etymology of ham radio that disputes this and you can dive into more about ham radio here

Greg also mentions that the San Francisco Radio Club works with the Auxiliary Communications Service in San Francisco. Greg told us the story about his work on the San Francisco Wireless Emergency Mesh system and you can find out more about that here

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Oasis For Girls

Thu, 1 Jul 2021 12:30:00 +0000

“I think just due to pervasive sexism, racism, classism in our society, the needs of under-resourced women of color are often overlooked”- Anu Menon

In this episode, our featured voice is the Executive Director of Oasis for Girls Anu, Menon who shares about Oasis for Girls programs which are really modeled on youth development, best practices that show that girls really thrive when they have multifaceted programming that is safe. It's in a safe environment, culturally relevant, and girl-focused with strong adult allies

A poll from C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital shows that one in three teen girls and one in five teen boys have experienced new or worsening anxiety from the pandemic. The poll shows that 46 percent of parents say their teen has shown signs of new or worsening mental health conditions since the beginning of the pandemic in march of 2020.

Given the backdrop of Covid-19’s impact on our mental health and especially the health of our youth and teenagers we wanted to share the wonderful work of Oasis for Girls. To find out more about Oasis for Girls’s Rise, Create and Envision programs as well as getting engaged as a supporter, mentor and employer please go to oasis for girls dot org

Anu mentioned that girls from Oasis participate in Women’s Audio Mission to develop their storytelling skills. You can find out more about Women’s Audio Mission in our interview with Elena BotKin–Levy and Leah King in Episode 55

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Jennifer Baity - Mental Health Expert

Thu, 1 Jul 2021 12:00:00 +0000

“Really there's nothing that's going to stop the revolving door of clients that have very severe psychiatric conditions, periodically because these are chronic conditions where people do have relapses from time to time” - Jennifer

In this episode, our featured voice is Jennifer Baity, a therapist in private practice who does training on motivational interviewing and other topics for various agencies throughout the bay area and beyond.

One of the reasons we wanted to host Jennifer on the show is the long-term holistic perspective she brings to mental health services. We are now going into the 16th month of a global pandemic and we wanted to get Jennifer’s unique insights into how COVID-19 has not only impacted the San Francisco Mental Health Rehabilitation Center where she worked for 20 years, but also our mental health services in general here in San Francisco.

According to an April 2021 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 55 percent of women and 38 percent of men say that the pandemic has negatively affected their mental health. The pandemic has impacted our younger community members ranging from 18 to 29 years of age with 69 percent of women and 54 percent of men reporting a negative impact on their mental health.

To find out more about Jennifer and the mental health care services she provides please go to jennifer baity dot com

Jennifer had mentioned her work with Edgewood. You can find out more about Edgewood Center for Children and Families and their work with teenagers in our interview with Justine Underhill and Gregg Biggs in Episode 32

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Vital Arts and the Northern California Community Land Trust

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 12:30:00 +0000

"When the private equity money comes in, that's when unfortunately you see the human equity and the cultural equity and the racial equity tends to disappear. Suddenly it's equitable only for the people that have brought the billions of dollars to play." - Ian Winters

With the health and financial impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and a low inventory of housing, especially live work and warehouse space, the focus of this week’s episode is on housing for our artists community members. Our featured voices are the executive consultant for Vital Arts, Kathryn Reasoner and the Executive Director of the Northern California Land Trust Ian Winters who share about their work with our artists community to develop solutions to deal with the pandemic’s ongoing impact on their housing.

To find out more about Vital Arts and to participate in the Opportunity Loan Fund go to vital arts dot org. To find out more about the Northern California Land Trust’s affordable housing, community facilities, current housing opportunities, the community co-ownership initiative and SB91 Housing Assistance senate bill please go to n c l t dot org

To hear other voices working with our artists community on a local level please listen to our interview with Justin and Karim at Project Artivism in episode 49 and our one hour special interview with Joaquin on the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development’s work to support our arts economy in episode 57. On a state level we hear from Julie of Californians for the Arts in episode 66 about their efforts to secure both funding and political will to help our arts community

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Compass Family Services

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 12:30:00 +0000

"Our families are still facing a collective total of about a million dollars in back rent, which is profoundly stressful” – Mary Kate Bacalao

Our featured voice in this episode is the Director of External Affairs & Policy of Compass Family Services Mary Kate Bacalao. The focus of this week’s show is on how the covid-19 pandemic is impacting our un-housed and low-income children and families. We hear from a San Francisco legacy social service organization Compass Family Services about their work with our families to deal with the pandemic’s ongoing impact on their housing, jobs, and health. To find out more and support the Compass Family Services’s Central City Access Point, Family Resource Center, Family Shelters, and Wrap Around services go to compass dash sf dot org

After listening to how Compass Family Services is helping our families stay in housing we hope that you will get engaged in advocating for our state legislators to both extend the rent moratorium, and provide more funding payments to help families, to reduce their back rent as well as support other programs

Over the 14 months of this series we wanted to bring voices from wonderfully powerful organizations supporting our families, youth and adults while being unhoused as well as providing the necessary wrap-around services to help stabilize them. We hope that you will take the time to listen back to incredibly insightful interviews with Kevin from Miracle Messages in Episode 1, Doniece and Kris of LavaMaeX in Episode 3, Meghan from Simply the Basics in Episode 16, Doug from Huckleberry Youth Programs in Episode 19, Charles and Demaree from At the Crossroads in Episode 29 along with our conversation with Lyslynn of BMAGIC and Sakeenah from Third Street Youth Center and Clinic in Episode 51 as well as conversation with George and Kenneth of GLIDE in Episode 42 and our conversation with one of the oldest family services agency in San Francisco Edgewood Center for Children and Families with Justine and Gregg Biggs in Episode 54

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Raphael House

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 12:00:00 +0000

“My joy is seeing the families as they first walked through the door and that support that they feel and that relief that they feel that, finally they have a place that for now they can call home until their real next home is achieved”- Marc Slater

Our featured voices in this episode are Cecilia Ferber the Director of Family Services and Marc Slater the Executive Director, of Raphael House. With over 15 months into the pandemic our most vulnerable families are continuing to face housing problems and securing support services. The City of San Francisco has extended the rent moratorium for another 60 days to the end of August but the end of the State of California’s rent mortium ending June 30th. With the potential of more families becoming homeless we wanted to bring you the voices of Raphael House to share their work on being a bridge out of homeless and poverty for families over these past 50 years. To find out more about Raphael House’s residential shelter and bridge program as well as support their children programs please go to raphael house dot org

After listening to how Raphael House is helping our families stay in housing we hope that you will get engaged in advocating for our state legislators to both extend the rent moratorium, and provide more funding payments to help families, to reduce their back rent as well as support other programs.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Stern Grove Festival

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 12:30:00 +0000

"We made the commitment that even with an expected deficit, we want to give this gift to the city. It's so necessary for the community to come back together" - Ilan Vasconcelos

In this episode we feature the voice of the Director of Development of Stern Grove Festival Ilana Vasconcelos. With the State of California officially reopening on June 15th of 2021 and performing arts organizations working their way through all of the ever changing health and safety protocols we wanted to feature one of the oldest outdoor music festivals in the City of San Francisco to hear how they’re working together with artists, staff and the local government, to bring the community back together through music.

How has Covid-19 impacted other musical events? Listen back to our interview with Cory of InterMusicSF Melody from San Francisco Performances, Patricia from Music at Kohl Mansion as well as Julie from Community Music Center Also please go to our series page to listen to all of the wonderful interviews with dozens of arts and culture organizations in the SF Bay Area.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Californians for the Arts

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 12:00:00 +0000

"There's become a recognition again, internally that artists are seeing themselves as laborers and essential workers and that it is okay to proclaim that doesn't take away of the integrity of your work and your creation" - Julie Baker

In this episode we feature the voice of the Executive Director of Californians for the Arts Julie Baker. Julie shares with us how the covid-19 pandemic is impacting our creative economy and its workforce as well as how Californians for the Arts is working with the state legislation to support the recovery of the creative economy. Please dig into the findings from the Californians for the Arts and Otis College's annual study on the Creative Economy in California

For more insights into the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the arts, culture and creative economy please listen to our interviews with Meg and David on their Return to the Stage Study and our interview with Allison and Randy of Intersection for the Arts and Brad from Theatre Bay Area. Also please go to our series page to listen to all of the wonderful interviews with dozens of arts and culture organizations in the SF Bay Area

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

How are our Small Businesses Doing?

Thu, 3 Jun 2021 14:30:00 +0000

"So we see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm trying not to use the word pivot anymore. I feel like I've pivoted so many times that I'm just pivoting in a big circle right now" - Tracey Sylvester

Welcome to our one-hour special panel discussion on small businesses. In today’s special episode we wanted to provide a broader understanding of the status of our small businesses by bringing together voices from small business owners, members of merchant associations which represent multiple small businesses across the City of San Francisco along with the San Francisco Treasurer & Tax Collector's Office and an economist to provide us insights on how the pandemic has impacted our small business community from the individual to the regional. Our voices in this episode are: Maryo Mogannam, President, San Francisco Council of District Merchants Associations,,Small Business owner, Tracey Sylvester, EHS Pilates, Adam Fowler, Director of Research Beacon Economics, Amanda Fried,Chief of Policy & Communications, SF Treasurer & Tax Collector's Office.

For more insights into our Small Business Community please listen back to all of the wonderful voices of small businesses that we've produced over these past 13+ months. You can take a small business owner for a walk or drive through diving into all of our wonderful past interviews with: Jeff and Shannon of Blue Plate SF, manufacturing granola with Michelle of Nana Joe's, how our restaurants are struggling with Laurie Thomas from the Golden Gate Restaurant Association also the incubation of food entrepreneurs with Andrea and Pooja and Rome from the Bayview Bistro along with the Brad, Haley and Jay of Fire Fly restaurant as well as Martha and Mark talking about training formerly un-housed folks to become bakers at the Hayes Valley Bakeworks and what its like to make wine and operate a community store in the Bayview with Barbara of Gratta Winery along with Kristin about operating community centric multiple restaurants and Lisa sharing about operating a unique gift shop and the importance of employees

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Literacy for Environmental Justice

Thu, 27 May 2021 12:00:00 +0000

We talk about all the pollution and all the issues that surround the Bayview and all the history such as the shipyard and all the changes in land that has happened in the Southeast - Alex Velasco

In this episode our featured voices are Executive Director Justice Patrick Marley Rump, Senior Development Consultant LeeAndrea Morton, and Community Program Coordinator Alex Velasco of Literacy for Environmental Justice

The focus of this week’s show is on how the covid-19 pandemic is impacting our youth and the nonprofit organizations that provide support services to help youth through this crisis. We wanted to feature the work of Literacy for Environmental Justice because of their unique and integrated effort of supporting youth in our community through utilizing environmental education, leadership and skills training, and the incubation and placement of native plants into our urban environment.

To find out more about Literacy for Environmental Justice’s eco adventures, eco apprenticeships and to donate to the native plant nursery and community garden expansion project that LeeAndrea spoke of please go to l e j youth dot org

For more insights into how our youth are being impacted by the pandemic and how our nonprofits are supporting our youth through the pandemic please listen to our interview with the Executive Director of the Huckleberry Youth Programs Doug Styles, in Episode 19, Charles Lerner the Executive Director and Demaree Miller the Program Manager of At the Crossroads in episode 29 along with the Chief Program Officer Justine Underhill and the Director of Advancement Gregg Biggs from Edgewood Center for Children and Families in episode 54

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Uplift Family Services

Thu, 27 May 2021 12:00:00 +0000

"We do whatever it takes to strengthen and advocate for children, families, and adults to realize their hopes, behavior, health, and well being"- Faith Jackson

In this episode, our featured voice is the Transitional Housing Program Supervisor of Uplift Family Services Faith Jackson. The focus of this week’s show is on how the covid-19 pandemic is impacting our youth and the nonprofit organizations that provide support services to help youth through this crisis.

To find out more about Uplift Family Services and to support Foster Youth with gift cards and donating suitcases as well as their other programs go to up lift fs dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Our Public Libraries in a Pandemic

Thu, 20 May 2021 12:00:00 +0000

You don’t need a building to provide library services to your community - Jayanti

In this episode our featured voices are the founder of Common Knowledge Susan Stuart Clark, the Director of Library Services, of the Hayward Public Library Jayanti Addleman and the Library Director of the Redwood City Library Derek Wolfgram

Welcome to our one-hour special on the importance of public libraries to our communities and how the combination of the covid-19 pandemic and economic meltdown has impacted our libraries. In the process of developing this special episode, we reached out to friend of the show Susan Stuart Clark to help us bring together our wonderfully informative panel discussion and to cohost this special episode.

Please listen to the companion episode of this public library special in episode 10 with Lucie Faulknor and Dawn Logsdon the Cofounders of Serendipity Films about their documentary film free for all [pause] inside the public library. Go to serendipity films dot org and sign up for their newsletter to find out when free for all showings will be coming to your community

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Theatre Bay Area

Thu, 13 May 2021 12:00:00 +0000

“How you get an entire sector back on its feet after 18 months of closure is really difficult and we're going to need support for years”-Brad Erickson

In this episode our featured voice is the Executive Director of Theater Bay Area, Brad Erickson. We wanted to host Theater Bay Area because they are another one of our long-time performing arts organizations that are focused on the incubation and support of the san Francisco Bay Area performing arts ecosystem.

As a response to the Covid-19 pandemic impact on our performing arts workers, Theater Bay Area created the performing arts worker’s fund. To amplify the impact of the performing arts workers fund Brad and his team brought together both the Dancers’s Group and InterMusicSF to participate in the performing arts worker’s fund.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

CalNonprofits

Thu, 13 May 2021 12:00:00 +0000

"Our mantras for the whole course of the pandemic has been trying to get as many resources to nonprofits as possible"-Lucy Salcido Carter

In this episode our featured voices are Public Policy Director Lucy Salcido Carter and Christina Dragonetti the Outreach and Communications Director at CalNonprofits. Over this past 13 months of producing this special series on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on nonprofits we have introduced you to numerous nonprofit organizations in the bay area. In today’s episode we wanted to provide you with a statewide perspective on our nonprofits and introduce you to cal non profits

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The Opportunity That Is Stockton - Reflect & Renew

Wed, 12 May 2021 20:00:00 +0000

“They tried to bury us, but they didn't know we were seeds." "I hope people recognize that we are continuing to fight and uprise against the injustices that are happening on all levels.” - Jasmine Dellafosse

Today’s convening and conversation with community leaders is our final follow up conversation from both our The Townhall Event we hosted in May of 2019 and the original 12 episode documentary series From Bankruptcy to Reinvention - The City of Stockton that we produced in 2016 and 2017.

The title of today’s episode is The Opportunity that is Stockton - where do we go from here a reflective conversation With the loss of Mayor Tubbs re-election we wanted to bring together as many of the voices featured in the original radio documentary series to have them update the community and listeners on their work going forward within the context of both a new City Administration, a global pandemic and an economic meltdown as well as how they are engaged with the community to continue to develop solutions facing Stockton and San Joaquin County community members.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Left Coast Theater Company

Thu, 6 May 2021 12:00:00 +0000

“I look forward to seeing how sort of the general public reviews, how they look at artists. And go, Oh, this is a valid life choice”-Erica Andracchio

In this episode our featured voice is Playwriter, actress and Executive Director of the Left Coast Theater Company. Erica Andracchio who describes herself as, the lady with many hats for a number of years now. "I started off acting and you know, when you're in high school and early college days it's, I'm gonna go to Hollywood and be a famous actress. And then you realize that doesn't pan out quite as easily as you think it does. Erica got very involved with, the San Francisco theater scene as an actress about fourteen, thirteen years ago."

"Left Coast Theater company is exclusively an LGBTQ, plus a theater company that does works primarily new works. We're known mostly for doing anthologies, which is a like 10 to 15 minute short play over the course of one night. You'll see maybe six or seven of them under one theme."

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Opera Parallele

Thu, 6 May 2021 12:00:00 +0000

"Harriet's Spirit is using the spirit of Harriet Tubman as an inspiration to a young girl to overcome bullying in school" - Nicole Paiement

In this episode our featured voice is the Artistic and General Director of Opera Parallele Nicole Paiement. “I started this company because I was very eager to not only collaborate with a lot of artists in the area, but specifically with living composers, and also try to find a way to sort of demystifying what opera is about bringing it into the 21st century by telling relevant stories and embracing modernist really making opera as compelling as it can be. And, you know, our vision is creating opera of our time and being part of this community through the art of storytelling and beautiful music”

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Antwuane's Story

Mon, 3 May 2021 22:41:38 +0000

I think the challenge for us is that we live and breathe this pain daily. And that's hard as this is to hear my aunt in pain. I carry that every single day. How the hell do they expect us to respond to a police officer who is biased against us to act professional and appropriate and kind when we know the one thing this cop wants to do is to hurt us. And it's not easy. It's not easy because people assume, Oh, You got to get over it. - Nicholas Hatten

This episode is an epilogue to our 14 episode documentary series on my home town the City of Stockton California. In this episode, our voices are Stephanie Hatten and Nicholas Hatten who share the story of Stephanie’s son and Nicholas’s cousin Antwaune Burrise’s death at the hands of the Stockton Police Department

We hope that you’ll take the time to listen back to all of the episodes in our documentary series on the City of Stockton. You will hear from the voices of community leaders in Stockton who are working together to address the systemic issues facing Stockton and San Joaquin County

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The San Francisco Office Economic Workforce Development with Joaquin Torres

Fri, 30 Apr 2021 12:00:00 +0000

I think that some of the most innovative, if not the only innovative programs that we saw to be successful was because the City listened to communities and neighbors and residents who had all the ideas quickly and your small business, entrepreneurs like your restaurants who were like, we got to figure something out of we're closed down.- Joaquin Torres

Our featured voice in this episode is Joaquin Torres, the former Director of the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development and the new San Francisco Assessor-Recorder. In this special hour-long episode, we wanted to focus on the City and County of San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development. The Office of Economic and Workforce Development is one of the City Government departments that has a unique mission of working across multiple sectors in our community from economic and community development to workforce training, community benefits, and housing. To accomplish our goal of this deep dive in this episode we feature the voice of Joaquin Torres who over the past decade-plus has been working in the center of all the intersections of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development

For more information about the importance of economy development please listen back to our Economic Development episode with Cathy Hickey, Carla Mays and Andrea Baker in our Archives. Find out how small businesses are being incubated by listening to our conversations with Pierre from SFMade in Episode 21, along with Sharon and Tim with Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center in Episode 48 and Pooja and Andrea from En2Action in episode 23. To get insights into our restaurant sector’s struggles please listen to our interview with Laurie from the Golden Gate Restaurant Association in episode 11 along with food entrepreneurs Jeff and Shannon from Blue Plate in episode 20, Rome from Rome’s kitchen in episode 24, Brad, Haley and Jay from Firefly in episode 32 and women in the bayview who’s restaurants have become community centers Barbara from Gratta Winery and Market in episode 38 and Kristin from All Good Pizza in Episode 41. And to get the insights of what it has been like owning and operating a small gift and card shop during a pandemic listen to our conversation with Lisa from Serendipity in episode 53

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Return to the Stage

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 12:00:00 +0000

We think that part of recovering at a grand scale in this country and in communities is actually going to be specifically about the performing arts. Because there’s something there that can be delivered to people to say, okay, we're on the other side, we made it. - Meg Friedman

In this episode our featured voices are Meg Friedman a senior consultant at AMS planning and research and David McGraw the Program Coordinator for Arts Administration at Elon University and we’re discussing Return to the Stage – A Performing Arts Workforce Study.

After going through the RETURN TO THE STAGE Study, I really wanted to host you on the show so that you could share with the audience, what they want impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is having on our performing arts workforce, your findings, insights, and recommendations.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Women's Audio Mission

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 12:00:00 +0000

Less than 5% of the people that are creating all of the things that make up the soundtrack to our lives every day are women or gender nonconforming folks or gender diverse - Elena Botkin-Levy

In this episode we feature the voices of Managing Director Elena Bot Kin–Levy and the Director of Education Leah King of Women’s Audio Mission

Women’s Audio Mission is another one of our unique nonprofits that provide both skills training and a global learning community that empowers women and gender diverse individuals to develop, produce and share their stories and the stories of our fellow community members as well as build career pathways in the audio production ecosystem. We discuss their Girls on the Mic program along with their adult ed and workforce training programs

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Edgewood Center for Children and Families

Thu, 8 Apr 2021 12:00:00 +0000

“We are very committed to having honest, open conversations about mental health and that there is nothing to be ashamed about having that discussion or saying that you need help” - Gregg Biggs

Our featured voices in this episode are Justine Underhill the Chief Program Officer and Gregg Biggs the Director of Advancement from Edgewood Center for Children and Families. The harm on our mental health from the covid-19 pandemic has been the most acute on our children, teenagers and young adults. School closures and enforced social distancing has added to the uncertainty, social isolation, and parental angst along with cutting off many teens and young adults from most of their psychological supports. This has put our children at a much higher risk of developing or amplifying their anxiety and depression. Researchers at Harvard, Northeastern, Rutgers and Northwestern universities conducted eight large survey rounds across all US states from April to October of 2020 and found that by October of 2020 over 36 percent of young adults had suicidal thoughts compared to just 32 percent in May of 2020 when the study started. These studies reinforce the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s August 2020 report that 25 percent of young people from 18 to 24 contemplated suicide in July of 2020 because of the pandemic driven lockdowns.

As our youth, families and community struggle with these mental health realities, we wanted to feature the voices of Justine Underhill the Chief Program Officer and Gregg Biggs the Director of Advancement from one of the legacy social service agencies in San Francisco that has been at the center of providing mental health services to our youth Edgewood Center for Children and Families.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

InterMusicSF

Thu, 1 Apr 2021 12:00:00 +0000

"I’ve just seen real ingenuity and perseverance, and also because of this, it’s connected to community in a much different way. That sense that all boats rise has really come through for this, I’d say” - Cory Combs

In this episode our featured voice is Executive Director of InterMusic SF Cory Combs. We wanted to host InterMusicSF because they are another one of our long time performing arts organizations that is focused on the incubation and support of our music groups.

InterMusicSF is also participating in the Theater Bay Area’s Performing arts worker relief fund to help raise funds to support musical artists just like Dancers’s Group for dancers and ZSPACE for performing artists

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Serendipity

Thu, 1 Apr 2021 12:00:00 +0000

"Small businesses, obviously the life blood of a town like San Francisco, we give so much in taxes and so much to schools and so much in donations. Because it's maybe not that much money as an individual, it's not recognized, but it's a huge thing. And San Francisco wouldn't be the same without all of those places." - Lisa Sherratt

In this episode our featured voice is Lisa Sherratt the owner of serendipity, a specialty gift and card store. Over this past year of producing this series, we have been looking for data on the impact on small businesses from the combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic collapse. Since San Francisco’s first shelter-in-place order on March 17 of 2020 to February 9 2021 open small businesses have dropped by over 50 percent according to new data compiled by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. Between March to July of 2020 the Hamilton Project estimates that four hundred thousand small businesses nationwide closed their door permanently.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

BMAGIC and 3rd Street Youth Center & Clinic

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 12:00:00 +0000

"The essence of what we do, providing stability, providing homes, you know, showing our youth that they are, they have value" – Sakeenah El-Amin

Our featured voices in this episode are Lyslynn Lacoste the Executive Director of BMagic and Sakeenah El-Ami the Deputy Director of the Third Street Youth Center and Clinic.

One of the biggest unintended consequences of our yearlong school closures, on again, off again stay-at-home orders, and ever-changing shutdowns of businesses deemed “non-essential” is the surging rates of both depression, suicide and drug overdoses among the young people in our community. In addition, the pandemic has made housing, food and medical services even that much harder to access for our transitional age youth 18 to 24. In today’s episode we wanted to feature two nonprofits that are working together in the south eastern community of san Francisco to provide services to our youth and families as they struggle to deal with the ongoing economic, health, safety and emotional impact of the pandemic.

To find out more about other wonderful organizations working with our youth and families please listen to our interview with Doug in Episode 19 from Huckleberry Youth Programs and our interview with Charles and Demaree in Episode 29 from At the Crossroads and to hear about how the San Francisco Marin Food Bank is helping with Food insecurity check out conversation with Katy McKnight in Episode Two.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

CivicMakers

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 12:00:00 +0000

In this episode, we feature the voices of cofounder of CivicMakers Judi Brown, Assistant Director of Human Resources at the City of San Jose Kelli Parmley and former Director of Digital Services and Open Government for the City of San Rafael, Rebecca Woodbury

In today’s show we wanted to focus on the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic and economic meltdown have and are continuing to have on our local governments. We asked our friend of the show Judi Brown and her team at CivicMakers to help us put together and co-host a panel discussion with local government thought leaders to share with us how they are responding to the economic and health crisis along with their experience’s insights and recommendations.

To find out more about Civic Innovation, please listen to our 2016 show titled What is Civic Innovation which features Judi Brown, from CivicMakers, Krista Canellaskis from the City of San Francisco’s Office of Innovation and Susan Stuart Clark from Common Knowledge.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Project Artivism

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 13:00:00 +0000

Now we're seeing that through our programs and programs of other organizations that there's really this emphasis, that these are essential services that artists are providing for business owners, communities, and people, students, and anyone really, you can think of it's really important work - Karim Zelenka

Our featured voices are Justin Hoover the Director of Programs, and Karim Zelenka the Chief of Staff at Project Artivism.

Throughout our series we have been featuring arts and culture nonprofits that are working with the community to provide innovative solutions to the Covid-19 pandemic impact on our economy, health, and sense of community. Project Artivism is another wonderful example of using art as a vehicle to bring together artists, youth, business, philanthropy and the public to drive change in our community.

To find out more about Artivism’s Restore 49 and Artivate Public Art Now programs and get engaged as a volunteer, artist, mentor, and business that would like to host an art project please go to Project Artivism dot org

To find out more about arts impact on our economy please check out the Otis College just published a 2021 report on Covid-19’s impact on the Creative Economy in the state of California.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center

Thu, 4 Mar 2021 13:00:00 +0000

"We really are coming alongside of those entrepreneurs and small business owners and helping them turn their passion to profit" - Tim Russell

Today’s episode is part of our efforts to better understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the small businesses and entrepreneurs that make up the economic fabric of our neighborhoods. We wanted to feature the voices of the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center who’s 30-year mission is to provide intensive entrepreneurship training, networking and mentorship to support the launch and growth of women owned businesses through their US Small Business Administration San Francisco Women's Business Center and to find out what they’re doing to help our entrepreneurs survive the economic meltdown. Let’s hear from Sharon and Tim on what they and their regional team at Renaissance are doing to help small businesses owners survive and thrive during the pandemic

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Tipping Point Community

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 13:00:00 +0000

“How do we pull all those resources and really make poverty something that is, solvable here in the Bay area” – Kelly Bathgate

In this episode, we feature the voices of Kelly Bathgate the Chief Program Officer and Marisa Giller the Communications Director at Tipping Point Community. Tipping Point Community was founded by Daniel Lurie back in 2005 with a systemic approach to ending the cycle of poverty for over one plus millions of our fellow community members in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tipping Point’s model is different from a traditional philanthropic organization or a foundation. Tipping Point sits right in the middle between incredible wealth and incredible poverty. Their board of directors covers their overhead, they utilize all of their funding to have 100 percent impact, they have no endowment and every year they start at zero and raise millions of dollars to fund nonprofits in their four key issues that Kelly and Marisa will walk us through today.

Marisa mentioned the Taking Count Study on poverty in the San Francisco Bay Area by sociologists and political scientists from UC Berkeley, the Othering & Belonging Institute and Tipping Point Community. The Taking Count Study was a panel survey conducted between 2018 and 2019 prior to the Covid-19 pandemic’s historic impact on the bay area. The study was published in May of 2020

Here are some of the findings from the study

Of the 7.75 Million people in the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area 17% of the residents are living in poverty

1 in 2 households cannot pay all of their bills over the course of a year

Thirty Percent of households went without essentials such as food, shelter and medicine because they could not afford them

Four out of Ten Bay Area families did not have savings to cover three months of expenses and one in five have less than Four Hundred dollars for an emergency

To find out more and get engaged in Tipping Point’s four key issues of housing, early childhood and employment and how they’re working with nonprofits, corporations and philanthropy to solve poverty for our fellow community members please go to tipping point dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Al Spector

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 13:00:00 +0000

“It's that vision that's really the difficult thing and it's challenging in the environment that we're in” - Al Spector

In this episode, we feature the voice of Al Spector, an advisor to non-profit and mission-driven organizations. Given the financial struggles of both our nonprofits and small business organizations we wanted to feature Al and ask him to share both his expertise and best practices to hopefully help folks through the process of securing funding through the various funding opportunities.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

U.S. Small Business Administration

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 13:00:00 +0000

“How can we support these businesses that are still here, help new businesses emerge and keep our small business community thriving” - Julie Clowes

In this episode, we feature the voice of Julie Clowes, the District Director of the Small Business. Administration's San Francisco District Office

Over these ten plus months we have been sharing the voices of small businesses and COVID-19’s devastating impact on their survival. With the latest round of federal funds now being deployed we wanted to host Julie to help guide our listeners through the funding opportunities available to both nonprofits and small businesses

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Dancers' Group

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 13:00:00 +0000

“It sends a message that we believe as a society that we are all better when we take care of each other” - Wayne Hazzard

In this episode our featured voice is the CoFounder and Executive Director of Dancers' Group Wayne Hazzard. The Dancers Group was born in the middle of the AIDS crisis has evolved over the decades as a service organization providing wrap around fiscal sponsorship programs and services to incubate and support artists,

To find out more about Dancers' Group and to In Dance publication, become a member, support one of the artists and or dance companies they fiscally sponsor support and donate to the COVID-19 Performing Arts Worker Relief Fund go to dancers' group dot org

Wayne mentioned his work with Theater Bay Area and the COVID-19 Performing Arts Worker Relief Fund. Please listen to Episode 12 and our interview with Rose Oser and Shafer Mazow from ZSPACE to find out more about the Performing Arts Worker Relief Fund. Wayne also spoke about his work with Intersection for the Arts to develop a multi-disciplinary space for arts organizations in San Francisco. Please listen to our interview with Allison Snopek and Randy Rollison from Intersections for the Arts in Episode 35 where we provided more details on the economics of arts and culture.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Community Music Center

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 13:00:00 +0000

“We're learning a lot from our Community Hubs participation and seeing how really hands-on Arts Rich Learning for students in small environments has a huge impact on their wellbeing” - Julie Rulyak Steinberg

In this episode our featured voice is the Executive Director of Community Music Center Julie Rulyak Steinberg. We wanted to feature the community Music Center because it is an anchor in our arts and culture ecosystem that has been supporting the training, cultivation and celebration of music from children to seniors since 1921.

To sign up for a free class in February, and find out more about all of the classes and education programs the Community Music Center offers please go to s f c m c dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

GLIDE

Thu, 4 Feb 2021 13:00:00 +0000

“We all know when you're hungry, you know, really nothing else matter”- George Gundry

In this episode our featured voices are George Gundry, the Director of the Free Meals Program, Program and Kenneth Kim, Senior Director of Programs of GLIDE.

With all of the death and economic destruction that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought down upon our community one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods is the Tenderloin.

The Tenderloin neighborhood is still one of the few affordable neighborhoods left that new immigrant families can afford to live in which has helped the neighborhood to be one of the most diverse. The Tenderloin is home to over 3,500 kids and 30 languages. It is also one of the poorer neighborhoods with a median family income of around $31,000 which is less than half of the citywide average of $78,000. Over 30% of households have incomes less than $15,000 thus around 30% of the residents live in poverty. The Tenderloin has a history of high crime, particularly violent street crime such as robbery and aggravated assault, an un-controlled open drug market, and thousands of un-housed community members struggling to stay alive during the Pandemic.

Within the context of the Tenderloin neighborhood, our featured voices from the Glide family George Gundry, the Director of the Free Meals Program, and Kenneth Kim the Senior Director of Programs share with you the passion, understanding, and helping hand that are part of the legacy of Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani’s mission of “creating a radically inclusive, just and loving community mobilized to alleviate suffering and break the cycles of poverty and marginalization”

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Music at Kohl Mansion

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 13:00:00 +0000

“ Two people came to us with actual instruments, from the holocaust that were played by their relatives.“ - Patricia Kristof Moy

In this episode our featured voice is Patricia Kristof Moy, the Executive Director of Music at Kohl Mansion.

Performing arts organizations generate a big percentage of their annual revenue through earned income in the form of ticket sales of live performances. Music at the Kohl Mansion is another legacy presenter of arts and culture that has lost 80% of its funding because of the one two punch of the Covid-19 pandemic and economic collapse of our performing arts sector. Patricia tells us how she and her team are transforming their intimate in person chamber music performances on to a global virtual stage

To purchase the Violins of Hope at Kohl Mansion album that was released on January 21st 2021 to coincide with the upcoming International Holocaust Remembrance Day and 76th Commemoration of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau please go to pentatone music dot com and search for violins of hope to buy and download the album

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

All Good Pizza

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 13:00:00 +0000

We still have a tremendous need and there's a lot of hungry people ”- Kristin Houk

In this episode our featured voice is Kristin Houk the Owner of All Good Pizza, TATO and Café Alma. Kristin is part of the Bayview woman food entrepreneurs who are change makers and community leaders providing jobs, healthy food options and a hand up to their fellow community members. To find out more about Kristin’s three restaurants as well as the community events and guest chef events please go to all good pizza dot com tato sf dot com and café alma sf dot com

You can listen to the story of Kristin’s friend April Spears and her Auntie April's Chicken and Waffles in Part 1 of our Doing Business in the Bayview Series in our Archives.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Friends of the Urban Forest

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 13:00:00 +0000

We have to be hyper-aware of social justice and environmental justice”- Dan Flanagan

In this episode our featured voice is that of long time Executive Director of Friends of the Urban Forest Dan Flanagan.

This past summer and fall we experienced the triple threat of a global pandemic, economic meltdown, and catastrophic wildfires that blanketed the San Francisco Bay Area in deadly smoke and toxic air. Our urban forests are one of the most important green infrastructures we can have to help us deal with climate change and the hottest years on record.

Trees in our city help us address the social and environmental justice issues facing our fellow community members in low-income neighborhoods. The city trees help filter the air pollution, retain rainwater, provide shade and their very presence helps reduce our stress levels, blood pressure and increases our mental engagement and happiness. And trees may help lower property and violent crime. In a 2010 USDA Forest Service Study research forester Geoffrey Donovan found that “large street trees can reduce crime by signaling to a potential criminal that a neighborhood is better cared for and therefore, a criminal is more likely to be caught”

To find out more information about how our Urban Forest helps us mitigate environmental injustice, about Friends of the Urban Forest, along with requesting a free tree to plant near your home or business and to support more trees for our city please go to FUF dot net

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Gratta Market & Wines

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 13:00:00 +0000

“It's, provided a safe place for people of all backgrounds to gather and meet and actually become friends” - Barbara Gratta

In this episode our featured voice is that of winemaker and food entrepreneur Barbara Gratta of Gratta Winery and Market in the Bayview district of San Francisco.

We’ve been sharing stories about economic development and small business incubation in the Bayview Hunters Point communities since 2015. For more context to our interview with Barbara Gratta please go to our Archives section and take a listen to our two-part series Doing Business in the Bayview. In part two of that series, we introduce you to Barbara and she shares more about her background and her love of making wine along with her efforts to work with the community in the Bayview neighborhood.

To find out more about the Bayview Stories please listen to episode 23 with Andrea Baker and Pooja Rajani and episode 24 with Rome Rogers from Rome's Kitchen. You can also listen to the story of April Spears and her Auntie April's Chicken and Waffles in Part 1 of our Doing Business in the Bayview Series in our Archive. And in that same Part 1 show we introduce you to Barbara Ockel the Executive Director of the Bayview Opera House who shares the history of the opera house and its importance in the Bayview community. To find out more about Gratta Winery and Market and to support their store go to gratta wines dot com

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Joe Goode Performance Group

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 13:00:00 +0000

"We're hoping that we can spread the wealth if you will, as far as possible” - Michelle Lynch Reynolds

In this episode, our featured voices are Michelle Lynch Reynolds the Executive Director, and Joe Goode the founder and artistic director, of Joe Goode Performance Group. Over the last thirty-plus years, Joe Goode Performance Group has promoted understanding, compassion, and tolerance among people through innovative dance.

We conducted this interview in December 2020 at the beginning of the City of San Francisco’s latest shelter in place which has now been extended indefinitely. Our interview includes Michelle discussing their end of the year fundraising campaign to support the development of upcoming creative work, their ongoing virtual educational programs, and the funding needed to cover basic overhead to help sustain the theater’s operations through the pandemic

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Hayes Valley Bakeworks

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 13:00:00 +0000

“All of us take these things for granted, that they're always there” - Mark Bailey

In this episode our first featured voices are Mark Bailey the head of operations and Martha Martinez the head of production and training at Hayes Valley Bakeworks. We wanted to share the story of Hayes Valley Bakeworks because of its unique self-supporting social enterprise model to provide a workforce training program in the culinary arts. Hayes Valley Bakeworks trains people with disabilities, formerly homeless people and people who are at risk. Hayes Valley Bakeworks was created by Toolworks which is the parent social enterprise that is a self-supporting nonprofit agency. Toolworks is dedicated to improving the lives of people with disabilities and operates two other workforce training programs through providing janitorial services and recycling services for businesses

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Intersection for the Arts

Thu, 7 Jan 2021 13:00:00 +0000

"the people who are working in the cultural sector and everything, it's exposed even further our vulnerabilities, the fact that we're always working in the margins" - Randy Rollison

In this episode our featured voices are Randy Rollison the Executive Director and Allison Snopek the Deputy Director of Intersection for the Arts. This week’s show with Randy and Allison is part of our end of year theme to highlight the importance of nonprofits in our community. Our conversation focuses on the arts and culture organizations they work with and to get their insights into how the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting these organizations that bring joy and inspiration to our communal lives.

We wanted to provide some economic context to our conversation with Alison and Randy, so we asked - “How big is the arts and culture economy in San Francisco?” The latest in-depth study we could find was a 2015 Arts & Economic Prosperity 5 national economic impact study that was conducted by Americans for the Arts in partnership with the San Francisco Arts Commission. According to the study the nonprofit arts and culture industry generates 1.45 billion in annual economic activity and supports 39,699 full-time equivalent jobs.

On a national level according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the creative economy employs 5.1 million Americans and contributes $877 billion annually to GDP.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Candid

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 13:00:00 +0000

“Simply put non-profits matter in communities and people depend on their services” - Anna Koob

In this episode our featured voices are Jacob Harold the Executive Vice President and Anna Koob the Director of Data Standards of Candid. Back in April 2020 when we decided to create this series on Covid-19’s impact first on nonprofits and then on small businesses in the San Francisco Bay we like you had no idea how long the pandemic would go on and what the health and economic impact would be on our community. Over these past nine months we’ve talked to over 33 nonprofits and small businesses about how Covid-19 and the subsequent economic meltdown is impacting their ability to continue to provide services and products as well as to just survive.

We wanted to end 2020 hosting an interview with Jacob and Anna and ask them to walk us through their findings, insights and recommendations from their published national and state analysis on how many nonprofits will shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Firefly Restaurant

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 13:00:00 +0000

“We're in an existential threat of losing everything that makes this place great”- Jay Beaman

In this episode, our featured voices are Brad Levy the owner, Haley Sausner the Chef, and Jay Beaman the Manager of Firefly restaurant. Firefly restaurant is another one of our local neighborhood gems known to serve up its beloved fried chicken along with some of the best vegetarian fare in San Francisco. Firefly like all of our restaurants and bars is being devastated by the combination of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and the latest City and State requirements to shut down all in-person dining. Thus, forcing restaurant owners like Firefly to try and stay alive by Take Out pick up and delivery alone will probably be the financial death nail to our restaurants.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Peninsula Ballet Theatre

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 13:00:00 +0000

People have danced since, you know, the caveman days they gathered together and beat on their drums and they danced” - Christine Leslie

In this episode, our featured voice is Christine Leslie the CEO and Executive Director of the Peninsula Ballet Theatre Our next featured voice is Christine Leslie the CEO and Executive Director of the Peninsula Ballet Theatre. Over its fifty years of operation, the Peninsula Ballet Theatre has become the artistic and cultural hub of San Mateo County through its School which fosters a community of inclusivity, Summer Camp, and live performances of classic ballet, jazz, ballroom, and hip hop. The covid-19 pandemic is hitting our performing arts organizations very hard and no one knows how many performing arts organizations will permanently close down. Christine shares with us how her team is reinventing their performances

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The Crucible

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 13:00:00 +0000

“ I hope we never stop supporting people who might have to make a decision between paying their rent and eating ramen noodles.” - Susan Mernit

In this episode, we are focused on our Making Community and our featured voices are Susan Mernit the Executive Director of The Crucible along with Janey Hayes a Glass Artists who is one of the Teaching Artists and Instructors at The Crucible. The Crucible is a unique platform that enables the Maker Movement which is made up of tens of thousands of Bay Area students, hobbyists, artists, and enthusiasts to discover and pursue their passion for the Industrial Arts. During the Covid-19 pandemic the need for Making and the community it helps foster are even more important to our sense of belonging and supporting the post-pandemic recovery

To find out more about the Crucible and to sign up for a class, along with participating in their virtual holiday gift fair Gifty and Giving Back at Gifty which goes until December 20th go to the crucible dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

At The Crossroads

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 13:00:00 +0000

“ If you want to end homelessness, you give people homes.” - Demaree Miller

In this episode, our featured voices are Charles Lerner the Executive Director and Demaree Miller the Program Manager of At the Crossroads. During the Covid-19 pandemic At the Crossroads staff continues to meet youth where they are - living on the streets of san francisco. At the Crossroads humanistic one on one approach is all about building long-term relationships with youth to help them move off the street and secure the long term wrap around services they want.

In San Francisco's 2019 homeless residents count there were an estimated 8,000 people experiencing homelessness. Of the 8,000, 1,200 are Transitional Age Youth ages 18 to 24. One in ten people aged 12 to 25 will experience homelessness in a given year. The City of San Francisco has set a goal to reduce homeless youth by as much as 50% by 2023. Half of the homeless people in San Francisco first experienced homelessness before the age of 25.

At the Crossroads is working with the City of San Francisco’s Rising Up Initiative program in partnership with the department of homelessness and supportive housing to ensure at the crossroads clients will have in-depth unconditional support. The Rising Up Initiative plans to serve 500 transitional age youth who are unhoused and to prevent another 450 young people who are at risk of becoming homeless. To find out more about at the crossroads go to at the cross roads dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The San Francisco Girls Chorus

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 13:00:00 +0000

“ To teach them how to be wonderful musicians” - Andriana Marcial

In this episode, our featured voice is Andriana Marcial the Interim Executive Director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus. One of the main goals of The San Francisco Girls Chorus is to teach young women to become wonderful musicians through their extensive music education program. Singing and live performances will be one of the last services and experiences to come back from the Covi-19 pandemic. Let’s hear Andriana tell us how they’re dealing with the pandemic.

To find out more about the San Francisco Girls Chorus and participating in their annual Holiday show on-line event on December 20th at 3pm pacific time go to sf girls chorus dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Presidio Dance Theatre, San Francisco

Thu, 3 Dec 2020 13:00:00 +0000

"Dance , is just an amazing way of bringing people together” - Sherene Melania

In this episode, our featured voice is Sherene Melania the Executive Director and Artistic Director of Presidio Dance Theatre of San Francisco. The Presidio Dance Theatre has a history of cultural and community engagement with a mission to use dance and the arts to educate, inspire, and forge connections between cultures.

For dance companies, December provides the opportunity to present the traditional holiday favorite The Nutcracker Ballet, and to generate a large percentage of their income. With Covid-19 closing down in-person live performances, dance companies have been forced to develop creative solutions to present their performances. I’ll let Sherene share with you how her team is presenting their annual holiday show. To find out more about Beyond the Land of Sweets Drive In show at Fort Mason December 3rd at 6:30pm along with Presidio Dance Theatre’s community engagement, and classes go to presidio dance dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

AXIS Dance Company

Thu, 3 Dec 2020 13:00:00 +0000

"Through difference, there is beauty” - Marc Brew, AXIS Dance Company

In this episode, our featured voices are Marc Brew the Artistic Director and Choreographer along with Danae Rees the Managing Director of AXIS Dance Company. AXIS Dance Company’s mission is to bring together both disable and non-disabled artists to create a radically inclusive dance sector and world by removing barriers and showcasing the beauty of difference. To find out more about AXIS Dance Company and their fundraising event on December 5th with the special screening of Alice in Californiland at 5pm pacific time go to axis dance dot org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Tech Exchange

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 13:00:00 +0000

"So, it's, a very, quiet but large issue in our community, especially when you know, Bay area should be the tech capital of the world" - Seth Hubbert

In this episode, our featured voice is Seth Hubbert the Executive Director of Tech Exchange and we are discussing how the digital divide is impacting low-income students and their families in Oakland the greater San Francisco bay area.

In a 2018 US Census Bureau, American Community Survey and San Francisco Digital Divide Survey between 32 to 41% of households in the San Francisco Bay Area do not have broadband. With the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic upon us ongoing Sheltering in Place and schools closing back down again the need for a device and broadband are a necessity to educate our children as well as to keep them and their families safe, and healthy.

For more insights into the Digital Divide please listen to our interview with Kami Griffiths of Community Tech Network in Episode 15. To hear more about the origins of Community Tech Network and meet some of its clients, instructors and Kami, please listen back to our 2016 episode titled The Digital Divide Have & Have Nots - How Digital Skills Changes Lives.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Shaping San Francisco

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 13:00:00 +0000

We're really trying to combat this amnesiac culture that we live in by bringing people together in public space, doing participatory community history - LisaRuth Elliott

In this episode, our featured voice is Lisa Ruth Elliot the Co-Director of Shaping San Francisco and we’re discuss Shaping San Francisco’s unique model of being a participatory community history project that documents and archives the overlooked stories and memories of San Francisco

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

En2Action and the Bayview Bistro SF

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 13:00:00 +0000

I think if anything, there's been more light and more sort of like, an awareness, right. Of small businesses, and how people really need to support the small businesses to, continue to contribute to the economy.” - Pooja Rajani

In this episode, our featured voices are Andrea Baker the founder of both Andrea Baker Consulting and the nonprofit En 2 Action along with Pooja Rajani the Director of Programs who leads the organization’s operations and project management.

I first worked with Andrea back in 2015 in the production of our two-part series “Doing Business in the Bayview” which I recommend that you listen to for more context on her team’s efforts in working with the Bayview Hunters Point community economically and culturally to reinvent their community. You can find the two-part series in our archives on george koster dot com, click on voices of the community and on the archives.

Doing Business in the Bayview Part 1

Doing Business in the Bayview Part 2

Andrea and Pooja have been working tirelessly in the bayview hunters point community of san francsico from our last great recession in 2008 to today’s covid-19 pandemic and economic meltdown. Throughout this time Andrea and Pooja have helped to incubate, cultivate, advise and promote food and beverage entrepreneurs as well as artisans in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood.

Their work with small business owners enables them to execute their dreams of controlling their own destiny and provide an economic legacy for their families. The backdrop of today’s interview is covid-19’s impact on the small business restaurants that make up the economic and cultural fabric of our neighborhoods and their struggle to stay alive.

For more insights into how Covid-19 is impacting our restaurant businesses please listen to our Episode 11 interview with Laurie Thomas the Executive Director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Rome’s Kitchen

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 13:00:00 +0000

Rome's Kitchen is actually the incubator for my family to help us get to the next level” - Rome Rogers

In this episode, our featured voice is Rome Rogers the founder of Rome’s Kitchen in the bay view hunters point neighborhood of San Francisco. Rome like many food entrepreneurs decided to take his love of food and hard work and invest in himself to pursue his dream of starting his own restaurant. Rome’s Kitchen is a unique Bayview mash-up of Italian and soul food. I’ll let Rome tell you more about how he came up with this unique blend of food and culture in the creation of his restaurant and catering business as well as the impact of covid-19 on his business.

The Golden Gate Restaurant Association has pushed back at the City of San Francisco’s latest roll back of restaurant operations with the closing of Indoor Dining. The almost daily changes between cautiously reopening restaurants and our economy and the increase of Covid-19 cases are having a devastating impact on our small business owners. The Golden Gate Restaurant Association estimates that the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on our favorite neighborhood restaurants could be that Fifty Percent of them will shut down permanently. For more insights into how Covid-19 is impacting our restaurant businesses please listen to our Episode 11 interview with Laurie Thomas the Executive Director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

SFMade

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 13:00:00 +0000

“giving a voice to the manufacturing sector, to the City, our funders, everyone, hopefully the public, and then really helping manufacturers know and talk to each other and often partner with each other, which we’re always super happy to see.” - Pierre Coeurdeuil, SF Made

In this episode, our featured voice is Pierre Coeurdeuil, Director of Advising & Education, at SFMade. San Francisco had forgotten its history of manufacturing with all of the latest booms such as the first dot com boom, then the bio tech boom and now tech boom 2.0. In 2009 Mark Dwight founder of Timbuk2 and Rickshaw Bags came together with Kate Sofis and Janet Lees to launch the nonprofit SFMade. Over the last ten years, SFMade has focused on enabling manufacturing to return to its place in our community and economy and to bring the jobs and products back into our lives.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Nana Joes Granola

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 13:00:00 +0000

“Yes, it’s a pandemic, and yes, we have to stay safe, but we have to learn how to help each other. We have to learn how to support each other’s businesses. We have to learn how to support each other’s families.” - Michelle Pusateri, Granola Master, Founder

In this episode, our featured voice is Michelle Pusateri from Nana Joes Granola. Nana Joes Granola is a wonderful example of a local manufacturing startup that has incubated through SFMade. And who’s owner brings her passion for both healthy natural foods and putting the community before profits which is why at Nana Joes Granola every employee is making above minimum wage. And who named her company after her Grandma who she called Nana, and both of her Grandfathers named Joe! The name seems to exemplify Michelle’s love of family and treating her employees and their families like her own family.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Huckleberry Youth Programs

Thu, 5 Nov 2020 13:00:00 +0000

“We've also learned is that, human connection cannot be replaced by video connection. The human touch cannot be replaced by remote. And so we are hoping soon to get back to that stage where we can see people in a room. We can, hold somebody's hand, we can look somebody in the eye, and hear their story and support them.“ - Doug Styles

In this episode, our featured voice is Doug Styles, the Executive Director of the Huckleberry Youth Programs. During the Summer of Love in 1967 Haight Ashbury San Francisco, Huckleberry Youth Programs became the first shelter for runaways in the nation. The program began as a joint effort with Glide Memorial Church and the legacy Haight Ashbury group the Diggers.

Over the last 53 years, their mission of helping free spirits survive in San Francisco has continued including the addition of an array of wrap-around support services such as their Crisis Shelter, Counseling Programs, Health Care Education, and Juvenile Justice Diversion programs.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Blue Plate SF

Thu, 5 Nov 2020 13:00:00 +0000

“I think places like ours where you can come in, sit down and enjoy a full service dining experience; there’s something culturally refueling about that, about sharing a meal with folks” — Jeff Trenam, Owner, Blue Plate SF

In this episode, our featured voices are Jeff Trenam, Owner, and Shannon Walter the manager of Blue Plate SF a restaurant located on Mission and Valencia Streets in San Francisco. The Covid-19 pandemic and economic downturn have hit our neighborhood restaurants very hard. The Golden Gate Restaurant Association has estimated that Fifty Percent of restaurants will be lost from the pandemic. Due to increasing coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, the City of San Francisco has paused its reopening plans that were scheduled this past Tuesday, November 3rd. The plan was to expand capacity such as increasing indoor dining to 50%, and now it will remain at 25%.

Jeff and Shannon at Blue Plate SF are a wonderful example of small businesses reinventing their operations to adapt to the almost daily changes of the pandemic and its impact on our community and economy.

To find out more about Covid-19's impact on San Francisco Restaurants, please listen to our interview with Laurie Thomas the Executive Director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

San Francisco War Memorial & Performing Arts Center

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 12:00:00 +0000

"Arts and culture really drive San Francisco. A lot of folks think of San Francisco as being a tech city, which we are. But the number one industry in San Francisco is tourism. And there would be no tourism in San Francisco if it weren't for arts and culture." Author: John Caldon

This week's show is focused on our arts and culture sector which generates $1.45 billion in annual economic activity in the City / County of San Francisco and supports over 39 thousand jobs. In this episode, our featured voice is John Caldon, the Managing Director San Francisco War Memorial & Performing Arts Center. The San Francisco War Memorial & Performing Arts Center opened in 1932 with the production of Tosca by the San Francisco Opera. The "War Memorial" name commemorates all the people who served in the First World War. It is one of the largest performing arts centers in the United States. It covers 7.5 acres in San Francisco's Civic Center Historic District and totals 7,500 seats among its multiple performance venues.

The Center is comprised of the War Memorial Opera House, Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, Herbst Theatre, The Green Room, The Wilsey Center (Atrium Theater, Education Studio), and Harold L. Zellerbach Rehearsal Hall, the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center (SFWMPAC) is a landmark cultural institution owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. The resident performing arts organizations are the San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and San Francisco Performances.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

San Francisco Performances

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 12:00:00 +0000

We’re championing a new generation of younger artists who were also looking at ways to make this art form relevant, contemporary, and even more equitable” Author - Melanie Smith

In this episode, our featured voice is Melanie Smith, President of San Francisco Performances. San Francisco Performances is an innovative curator of established classical music, jazz, and dance artists as well as a leading supporter of the next generation of performance artists with a commitment to equity for all. Their artist’s residencies provide opportunities for public school students who encounter music and dance for the very first time—to engage personally with artists and gain a deeper understanding of their work.

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a very big economic impact on performance organizations and the performing art community with an estimated 50% unemployment rate for performance artists on a national level. The financial impact will continue since the gathering of people in theaters will be one of the last business sectors to re-open in the San Francisco Bay Area. To Melanie and John’s point performing art organizations are being forced to develop new models of live streaming of shows and when small socially distanced audiences can come back into the theater the creation of hybrid performances of both on-line and in person could become the new theater experience. To find out more about how you support San Francisco Performances 41st season go to sf performances dot org.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Simply the Basics

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 12:00:00 +0000

In this episode, our featured voice is Meghan Freebeck, the CEO and founder of Simply the Basics. Simply the Basics is focused on providing access to hygiene for our fellow community members who cannot provide this most basic need for themselves and their families. Simply the Basics has created a unique National Hygiene Bank Model as well as piloting an Open Marketplace for people to list in-kind donations. These services are designed to make it easier for both individuals and other nonprofit organizations to better utilize the in-kind product donations to provide hygiene products for our unhoused and low-income community members and in turn, support their most basic core health needs.

The combination of the Covid-19 pandemic and its health and economic impacts on both our unhoused and low income community members has exacerbated the need for basic hygiene products and services. To find out more about how you can help provide hygiene products to our unhoused and low income community members go to Simply the Basics.

In the interview mention Project Homeless Connect which Meghan has been until recently the CEO of and is one of the partners of Simply the Basics. You can find out more about Project Homeless Connect by listening to Episode Nine of our series on Covid-19's impact on nonprofits and small businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Community Tech Network

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 12:00:00 +0000

In this episode, our featured voice is Kami Griffiths, the executive director and co-founder of Community Tech Network. In the 21st Century, access to the internet and devices to participate in the global public square has become a human right. The Covid-19 pandemic has again provided us an X-Ray vision of all the negative impacts on our fellow citizens who do not have access to the internet. In a time when we’re all supposed to shelter in place, without internet access which so many of us take for granted, our seniors and low-income community members are falling further and further behind economically, socially, as well as dealing with the negative impacts of isolation on their mental and physical health.

To hear more about the origins of Community Tech Network and meet some of its clients, instructors and Kami, please listen back to our 2016 episode titled The Digital Divide Have & Have Nots - How Digital Skills Changes Lives.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

City Arts & Lectures

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 12:00:00 +0000

“We give a platform to artists and writers who might not have one otherwise to be a voice to the public”

In this podcast episode our featured voice is Alexandra Washkin, the Design & Communications Director of City Arts and Lectures. This fall, City Arts & Lectures launches its 40th season virtually from the Sydney Goldstein Theater. The Sydney Goldstein Theater was the old Nourse Auditorium that City Arts and Lectures resurrected from being a storage facility for the San Francisco Unified School District. The Sydney Goldstein Theater is both the platform for City Arts and Lectures’ diverse and innovative programming as well as a wonderful resource for other arts and cultural organizations to present their programming.

The City Arts and Lectures team are continuing to bring their blend of writers, critics, scientists, performing artists, and cultural figures from around the world through experimenting with the new virtual theater format along with hosting old favorites like Drive In movies. To find out more about the City Arts and Lectures 2020 - 2021 season go to city arts dot net.

This episode is part of our series on Covid-19's impact on nonprofits and small businesses.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Meals On Wheels, San Francisco

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 12:00:00 +0000

Making sure that not a single, older adult client, missed a meal, during the pandemic”

In this episode our featured voice is Jim Oswald, the Director of Marketing and Communications for Meals on Wheels, San Francisco. Over their 50 years of operations in San Francisco Meals on Wheels is the only organization to provide homebound seniors two home-delivered meals a day 7 days a week. In addition to providing meals, the Meals on Wheels San Francisco team provides our fellow senior community members with wrap around support services such as Nutrition Counseling, Well-being and Safety Checks, Social Work and Case Management as well as coordinating minor home repairs and volunteer based grocery shopping along with social phone calls to check in with homebound seniors.

Seniors have had the highest death rates of the Covid 19 pandemic. Meals on Wheels San Francisco provides an essential service of supporting our fellow senior community members to safely shelter in place and help to reduce loneliness and isolation which we are all feeling these days. To find out more about how you can help support our seniors go to mowsf dot org. We mentioned Meals on Wheels, San Francisco’s partnership with the San Francisco Marin Food Bank. You can find out more about the San Francisco Marin Food Bank by listening to Episode Two of our series.

This episode is part of our series on Covid-19's impact on nonprofits and small businesses

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Serendipity Films - “Free For All: Inside the Public Library”

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:48:16 +0000

In this episode we feature the voices of Lucie Faulknor Dawn Logsdon the CoFounders of Serendipity Films. I had the wonderfulI opportunity of working with Dawn and Lucie back in 2012 as an intern on their films Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans and Free For All.

What immediately struck me in working with Lucie and Dawn is their passion for telling untold stories of people and places that our society has under explored or just plain ignored. They are always working to bring together all the elements of a wonderful story and sharing it to audiences in hopes of opening minds and dialogues that can inspire action to make the needed changes to our community such as supporting our Libraries and Librarians.

for my friends in Germany g69fgt3frDkuhfufig6o7zqo3czj43inpz7ix6d

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Z Space

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:48:06 +0000

In this episode we feature the voices of Rose Oser, the Associate Artistic Director and Shafer Mazow the Managing Director of Z Space. Z Space has become one of the nation’s leading laboratories for developing new voices, new works, and new opportunities in American theater.

Z Space’s performances span a variety of disciplines, including theater, dance, visual art, music and performance art. Through its Z Space New Works program, the organization develops unique works from initial concept to on-stage production. Z Space also provides technical residencies in which artists can make use of the entire facility, including the stage, lights and sound system to test and develop their concepts.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The Golden Gate Restaurant Association

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:47:57 +0000

In this episode we feature the voice of Laurie Thomas, the Executive Director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association. The Golden Gate Restaurant Association has been around since 1936 and has supported the efforts of local small business owners to address such issues as collective labor agreements, racketeering and food rationing during World War Two.

Over the decades the association helped its members market their restaurants through creating an annual Dining Guide, and setting up a purchasing guide along with group insurance and workers compensation programs. The Association’s education program offers the only Food Safety training of its kind in the State of California by partnering with the San Francisco Department of Public Health and is a Certified Test Site Administrator with the National Registry of Food Safety Professionals along with proctoring the Food Manager Certification Exam.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Project Homeless Connect

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:47:48 +0000

In this episode we feature the voice of Meghan Freebeck, the Chief Executive Officer of Project Homeless Connect. Back in 2004 the City of San Francisco was struggling with both the growth of community members becoming homeless and how to provide the necessary wrap around services to help them off the streets.

The City of San Francisco was implementing the Care Not Cash Program to help homeless San Franciscans receiving County Adult Assistance Programs by offering them housing or shelter and support services as part of their benefits. Project Homeless Connect was created in 2004, by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom and the San Francisco Department of Public Health as a way to provide a one stop service agency for all the necessary wrap around services to people experiencing homelessness. To find out more about the origins of Project Homeless Connect please listen to my interview with Emily Cohen than Deputy Director at Project Homeless Connect in Episode Two of my three part series titled Homeless in San Francisco.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Word For Word

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:47:38 +0000

In this episode we feature the voices of Susan Harloe and JoAnne Winter Co-Artistic Directors along with Amy Prosser, the Youth Arts Program Coordinator of Word for Word Performing Arts Company. Over the past 25 plus years Word For Word has theatrically transcribed and performed over 70 stories by some of the world’s best writers.

Word for Word brings short stories to life with both exciting visuals, and innovative staging, and they do all this without altering the author’s voice including keeping every he said and she said intact. In addition to Word for Word’s live theater performance program they created an arts education program known as Youth Arts. The Youth Arts program utilizes the Word for Word style of in-depth, literature-from-the-inside-out workshops in San Francisco Bay Area schools.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The Gubbio Project

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:47:27 +0000

In this episode we feature the voice of Shannon Eizenga,(Zynga) the Executive Director of The Gubbio Project. The Gubbio Project at St Boniface in the Tenderloin and St John's the Evangelist in the Mission districts of San Francisco provide sanctuaries for safe and sacred sleep in their pews to over 200 unhoused neighbors.

In an effort to remove all barriers to providing a safe space, there are no questions asked, no forms to sign and no one is turned away from participating in The Gubbio Project. In addition to a safe place to sleep The Gubbio Project provides support services to unhoused community members such as socks, hygiene kits, referrals to social services, blankets, foot care, Chaplains to to provide nonjudgmental deep listening and massage.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The Children’s Book Project

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:47:14 +0000

In this episode we feature the voices of Emily Maksymiuk the Managing Director along with Board Members Risa Schwartz and Maureen McCarthy of the Children’s Book Project. Over the last 28 years The Children's Book Project has given away free books for children who need them. Additionally, all those who serve children and need books such as teachers, public-health workers, childcare providers, homeless shelter staff, and parents from all over the Bay Area can select an unlimited number of free books. Some of the books are donated by publishers, authors, and booksellers. However almost all of the books that are in high demand such as picture books, early readers, books in Spanish must be bought new.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Community Forward SF

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:47:03 +0000

In this episode we feature the voice of Sammie Rayner, Chief Programming Officer with Community Forward SF. Over the past 40 plus years Community Forward SF has been helping our unhoused community members to move off the street, find comprehensive services and stabilize their lives.

Community Forward SF serves over 6,000 unhoused community members annually. Some of the most vulnerable community members are cis-gendered and trans women. Community Forward SF is the leading agency addressing the unique needs of these fellow community members. As part of providing comprehensive services Community Forward SF provides housing, a sobering center, and medical services.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

LavaMaeX

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:46:52 +0000

In this episode we feature the voices of Doniece Sandoval founder and Kris Kepler Chief Program & Strategy Officer of LavaMaeX. I first met Doniece back in 2014 when she was launching lava mae through her innovative idea of converting old Muni Buses into Mobile Showers. To find out more about the origins of lava mae please listen to Episode Two in my three part series titled Homeless in San Francisco

LavaMaeX is the latest iteration of Doniece’s original vision of providing radical hospitality to unhoused people through mobile showers, toilets and its pop-up care villages, which provided access to wrap around support services and resources for people experiencing homelessness. LavaMaeX is a nonprofit accelerator bringing their open source toolkits, in-depth training and strategic partnerships to communities around the world to empower them to take these critical services to their unhoused community members.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

San Francisco-Marin Food Bank

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:46:41 +0000

In this episode we feature the voice of Katy McKnight, the Director of Community Engagement with the San Francisco Marin Food Bank. The San Francisco Marin Food Bank’s mission is to end hunger in San Francisco and Marin where one in four neighbors is at risk of hunger. The Food Bank was providing food for Thirty Thousand households per week.

This was all before the Covid 19 pandemic hit and tens of thousands of people in San Francisco and Marin lost their jobs. The need is estimated to have doubled over the past Ninety Days. Over 100 of the food bank's 250 plus food pantries had to close because of the Covid 19 pandemic. The food bank is operating 20 plus pop up pantries at schools and community centers to address the massive the food in-security facing our neighbors

To help feed home bound seniors who used to visit San Francisco Marin Food Bank pantries for groceries they have created the Pantry at Home program to deliver food directly to 7 thousand plus seniors.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Miracle Messages

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:46:25 +0000

In this episode we feature the voice of Kevin Adler, the Founder and CEO of Miracle Messages. Kevin started Miracle Messages in honor of his uncle Mark, who lived on-and-off the streets for 30 years. Miracle Messages helps reunite families through helping community members who are unhoused to record short video messages to a family member. Volunteers, referring nonprofit and government partners or formerly homeless ambassadors help record the message. Then a network of volunteer digital detectives attempt to locate the unhoused person’s family to deliver the message. The digital detectives also work with the family and the unhoused person to facilitate a reunion. As of the recording of this episode Miracle Messages has facilitated over 325 family reunifications.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The San Francisco Mime Troupe

Wed, 1 Jul 2020 22:07:20 +0000

Title: “Support all of the performers, artists, designers, directors, writers, and technicians, whenever you can”

In this episode we feature the voice of Michael Gene Sullivan, a Board Member, writer, director and performer of The San Francisco Mime Troupe. Over the past Sixty Plus Years The San Francisco Mime Troupe Collective has created and produced theater through the lens of the working class by exposing social and economic injustice with a call to action to make the necessary changes on behalf of working people. The collective’s mission is to present their work to the broadest possible audience with both artistry and humor and thus, their performances are free and performed in public parks throughout California and the nation.

This episode is part of a series of interviews we conducted through our participation in the Bay Area Video Coalition’s TV Show titled "San Francisco Nonprofits Spotlight". The interviews were conducted via Zoom from April to June 2020 during the height of the first phase of the Covid 19 pandemic and the Shelter In Place requirements. The goal of the series is to shine a spotlight on the nonprofits and their staff who are struggling to deal with the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on their operations, services and sustainability. The series of interviews we conducted features voices from a cross section of organizations that make up the fabric of our community. Each of them brings a unique perspective on how they and we are dealing with the issues facing our community during the pandemic.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Project Homeless Connect’s Outreach to Newly Un-housed SF Residents

Mon, 16 Dec 2019 19:54:59 +0000

This is a special episode of Voices of the Community featuring the voices of Meghan Freebeck, and Carla Praglin of Project Homeless Connect.

Since my mom died back in the fall of 2016 I have used some of the monies I inherited from her to support the work of Project Homeless Connect through an annual holiday crowdfunding campaign. Over the past two years together with friends, family, and listeners like you, we have raised over Ten Thousand Dollars to provide dental, vision, hearing and housing support services to hundreds of our fellow community members who are experiencing homelessness.

Every two years the City of San Francisco conducts a Point in Time Count of every homeless person both sheltered and unsheltered. The 2017 count was 7,499 persons experiencing homelessness. The 2019 count was 9,784 persons experiencing homelessness, a 30 percent increase with 1,145 of them being unaccompanied children and transitional age youth. According to Bay Area Community Services, for every one person housed, three people fall into homelessness. Additionally, the San Francisco Foundation has found that 20% of unhoused bay area residents were housed just two years ago.

I hope that you will join us in supporting the Project Homeless Connect holiday crowdfunding campaign by visiting https://handup.org/campaigns/cdos to make your donation. You can also find out more about Meghan, Carla, Project Homeless Connect services, their team, and of course how to volunteer for the next Community Day of Service

Please listen to my three-part Homeless in San Francisco episodes https://georgekoster.com/vocstories-homelessness These episodes provide more information on other wonderful nonprofit organizations providing support services to our fellow unhoused community members.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

State of Our Youth: A Stockton Townhall Meeting : Live Show

Sat, 6 Jul 2019 21:16:00 +0000

In the process of producing the documentary series, "From Bankruptcy to Reinvention The City of Stockton California", I wanted to provide our listeners with an update on the work of the community members featured in the documentary series. I decided to host a Townhall Meeting and bring together as many of the voices featured in the radio documentary series to update the community and listeners on their work as well as engage with the community on issues and solutions.

Nicholas Hatten, founder of San Joaquin Pride Center and Michael Tubbs campaign manager for City of Stockton Council person seat who is featured in episode two of the documentary series and I also wanted to bring together the Nonprofit Social Justice All-Star Collaborative and the Collaborative's San Joaquin County Youth Council to develop the Townhall meeting into the State of Our Youth: A Stockton Townhall Meeting.

The Townhall Meeting provides both our voices of youth and adult community leaders an opportunity to share their work in the community, issues they want to see addressed and actions that community members can engage in to reinvent the City of Stockton.

The Nonprofit Social Justice All-Star Collaborative and the San Joaquin County Youth Council proudly announced their Youth Manifesto, a collective groundbreaking pledge towards equity and resilience for Stockton area youth.

Longtime Stockton Record newspaper columnist Michael Fitzgerald emceed the three-hour event, which featured, two-panel discussions and spoken word performances at Franklin High School’s auditorium in the City of Stockton.

Stockton native spoken word artist Brandon Leake performed the opening and closing of the Townhall event. Michael Fitzgerald delivered remarks on Stockton, present, and future. Fitzgerald then moderated a panel of Youth Council members. The young leaders related what they are doing to better the city and further efforts needed.

The second panel features the activists who appear in the radio documentary “From Bankruptcy to Reinvention – The City of Stockton California:” Included are Lange Luntao, president of Stockton Unified Board of Trustees, Jasmine Dellafosse, senior regional organizer for The Gathering for Justice,founding member of RSSC and the Stockton School Initiative, Sammy Nunez, executive director of Fathers and Families of San Joaquin, Fred Sheil, administrator of STAND, Dillon Delvo of Little Manila Rising and others.

Stockton poet laureate Tamma Brisbane, Rhodesia Ransom and Sammy Nunez with Youth Council members presented the youth manifesto.

The goal of producing the Townhall event was to identify the issues facing Stockton, the solutions that people have been working on, as well as new solutions that people can come together with -- and most importantly for people in the community to step up and participate.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The Rose That Grew From Concrete

Sat, 25 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In this episode, we feature the voice of Michael Tubbs. We have broken the episode down into two parts.

Part one takes place back in the summer of 2016 when I caught up with Michael Tubbs who was at that time the youngest City Council member in Stockton history and one of the youngest elected officials in the United States. Michael was as you heard in Episode 11 from Tama Brisbane working to change Stockton’s history by making history. Michael was making a run to become the youngest and first African American Mayor of his hometown.

In Part two of our episode, we wanted to sit down with now Mayor Michael Tubbs and revisit all of the work he was doing in 2016, his campaign promises, his vision for the City of Stockton, and find out what have been the outcomes of these efforts.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Unedited Episode 12 The Rose That Grew From Concrete

Fri, 24 May 2019 16:00:00 +0000

In this unedited interview, for episode 12 we feature the voice of Michael Tubbs. The interview was conducted in August of 2016 when Michael Tubbs was running for Mayor 🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact: - Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2 - From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience. - COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community. - Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Changing its history by making history

Fri, 24 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In episode one my associate producer Nick (MaClindon) spoke with Rebekah Fenton about Michael Tubb’s love of the power of the Spoken Word and the metaphor of Stockton’s rise from the ashes of Bankruptcy through Tupac Shakur's monumental poem The Rose That Grew From Concrete.

Tama with her husband Aaron founded With Our Words a nonprofit, slam poetry collective that has created safe spaces for young people to express themselves through written and spoken word and provided opportunities for at-risk youth to connect the dots between literacy, critical thinking, social action, and community results. With Our Words trains young writers and creates performance opportunities for youth poets in Stockton, and the Central Valley such as their All-City Poetry Slam, Poetry Book Camp and Dream Out Loud.

Brandon is a spoken word poet who grew up in what Brandon calls the ghettos of South Stockton in a single parent household with his mother Carla Leake-Gibson. Brandon shares his passion for helping youth to find their voice and tell their story through the expression of poetry and spoken word. Brandon has created Called To Move which works with school-age students between the grades of 7th-12th through spoken word poetry workshops, and spoken word poetry performances

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Unedited Episode 11 Changing its history by making history

Thu, 23 May 2019 16:00:00 +0000

In this unedited episode, we feature the voices of Tama Brisbane a self-described hip-hop midwife and longtime friend of Michael Tubbs who appointed her as the City of Stockton’s first Poet Laureate and the voice of Brandon Leake a spoken word poet who grew up in what Brandon calls the ghettos of South Stockton 🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact: - Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2 - From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience. - COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community. - Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

How do you change a 40+ year long Negative Narrative?

Thu, 23 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Multiple generations of South, East, and downtown Stockton residents have suffered the impacts of the City's policies of economic apartheid and corruption. This, in turn, created the deadly outcomes of abject poverty, crime, institutionalized racism, and the community narrative that residents do not feel like they belong in Stockton and are not welcome in the city in which they live.

Through Hector’s work in empowering community members to have both a choice and voice, he identified that there are many different organizations providing services in the community but that they were not working together to maximize their impacts.
Hector came together with then-Councilmember Michael Tubbs to form the Reinvent South Stockton Coalition to provide a vehicle to bring together 40 organizations and align their efforts, resources, and services to better address the multitude of issues facing the South Stockton community.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Unedited Episode 10 How do you change a 40+ year long Negative Narrative?

Wed, 22 May 2019 06:43:00 +0000

In this un-edited episode, we feature the voice of Hector Laura who is the co-founder and executive director of the Reinvent South Stockton Coalition as well as the South Stockton Promise Zone. Hector shares his experience in organizing and developing community programs to address the decades of the City’s policies. 🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact: - Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2 - From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience. - COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community. - Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Poverty shortens lives by 20 years

Wed, 22 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In this episode, we feature the voices of Barb Alberson, Benita Ortez, as well as Horacio Viramontes along with students from the Franklin High School Spanish Club.

The first voice is Barb Alberson, the Senior Deputy Director for Policy and Planning at San Joaquin County Public Health Services who shares her insights into the impact of poverty on health outcomes. The second set of voices are Horacio Viramontes IB Spanish Teacher and the Spanish Club Advisor along with his Franklin High Spanish Club Students who share their community service work at the second annual Reinvent South Stockton Coalition Resident Summit. The third voice Benita Ortez, community activist, and grandmother who shared both her and her grandkids experience living in South Stockton as well as her efforts to secure more resources and in turn, provide a safer community for kids and families.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Unedited Episode 9 Poverty shortens lives by 20 years

Tue, 21 May 2019 00:13:00 +0000

In this episode we feature the voices of Barb Alberson, Benita Ortez, as well as Horacio Viramontes along with students from the Franklin High School Spanish Club. 🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact: - Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2 - From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience. - COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community. - Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Doing the Work that Dr King and Malcolm X Left Behind for us to do!

Tue, 21 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The Summer Success Leadership Academy was co-created in 2010 by Stockton natives Ty-Licia Hooker, and Michael Tubbs. The one-week residential program is free to about 50 minority high school students who learn to design and execute community action plans to address problems facing their communities. The Summer Success Leadership Academy is hosted with the University of the Pacific.

Like the Phoenix Scholars program we discussed with Rebekah Fenton in episode one, the Summer Success Leadership Academy’s mission is to increase access to higher education for underrepresented students. The Summer Success Leadership Academy is part of Michael Tubbs’s work to develop an ecosystem of youth organizing and leadership which ties into both the Stockton Scholars program that we discussed with Lange Luntao in episode five and with the Stockton School Initiative and student outreach with Jasmine Dellafosse in Episode 7.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Unedited Episode 8 Doing the Work that Dr King and Malcolm X Left Behind for us to do!

george@georgekoster.com (George Koster) — Mon, 20 May 2019 16:00:00 +0000

In this episode, we feature the voice of Anthony Rodriguez who is an 8th grade English and Math educator at Marshall Elementary and works with the Summer Success Leadership Academy in leading the mentor training program. Anthony shares his passion for teaching and empowering youth to understand and embrace the socio-economic construct of Stockton’s economic apartheid and to break out of that setup to write their own life stories. 🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact: - Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2 - From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience. - COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community. - Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Trust your voice and your story

Mon, 20 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

As was mentioned by Lange Luntao in Episode Five part of the mission of the community group Reinvent South Stockton Coalition created by then-Councilmember Michael Tubbs is to empower its residents to transform their community through improving, education. A big part of improving the education is through engaging the users of the education system the youth. Our voice in this episode is Jasmine Della -ah-fosse who shares her experience working with Michael Tubbs as well as the Reinvent South Stockton Coalition in organizing students to address the crime, safety, recreation, health, and the education systems in South Stockton.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Our strength is our diversity

Sun, 19 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Stockton was home to the largest community of Filipinos outside of the Philippines and they were segregated to a four-block area called Little Manila in downtown Stockton. In this episode, we feature the voice of Dillon Delvo a second-generation Filipino American and co-founder of Little Manila Rising. Dillion and fellow co-founder the late Dr. Dawn Mabalon formed Little Manila Rising to both preserve the history and reclaim the last remaining buildings of Little Manila.

Dillon shares his passion, insights and organizational work around advocacy, education, arts, and culture as part of Little Manila Rising’s efforts to revitalize the Filipina American community in Stockton. The Filipina American community is the largest Asian community in California. For more information on Little Manila Rising please visit their website https://www.littlemanila.org

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Be the change you want to see

george@georgekoster.com (George Koster, Eric Estrada) — Sat, 18 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Lange Luntao is the Director of the Stockton Scholars and the Executive Director of the Reinvent Stockton Foundation, a charitable organization that aims to expand opportunity and build hope by attracting resources into Stockton and investing in our city's people. A third-generation teacher who was born and raised in Stockton. Lange returned to Stockton in 2012 to work in public service and education - first as the Field Director for the successful campaign to elect Michael Tubbs to the Stockton City Council.

Stockton, California is a city on the rise. Once the foreclosure capital of America and the largest city before Detroit to declare bankruptcy, Stockton is now ranked the second most fiscally solvent city in the nation. But despite this progress, problems persist and the people of Stockton, especially our youth, remain behind the rest of the nation. Only 35% of our students are college-ready by graduation, and we have a youth unemployment rate that exceeds 30%. Get Involved and become a Student Ambassador http://www.stocktonscholars.org/get-involved/ You can also donate to the Reinvention of Stockton at http://reinventstockton.org/support/

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

All your preconceived notions are wrong

george@georgekoster.com (George Koster, Eric Estrada) — Fri, 17 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Fred has worked over twenty-five years with STAND developing over 400 units of affordable housing in South Stockton as well as working with residents and the police department to implement and manage community policing.

To understand the birth of STAND, one needs to understand the history of the “neighborhood” of Fair-view Terrace. The neighborhood is a seventeen-block area of southeast Stockton, consisting of very low to middle income residents, most of who are African-American and Hispanic. Beginning with the ‘crack’ epidemic of the early 1990’s, the entire area became plagued by overt criminal activity and blatant outdoor drug sales. Get engaged with STAND http://standaffordablehousing.org/

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

What choice are you going to choose today?

george@georgekoster.com (George Koster, Eric Estrada) — Thu, 16 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Samuel Nuñez, Executive Director of Fathers & Families of San Joaquin is a state and nationally recognized expert in the field of youth development, violence prevention and community organizing for social change. After experiencing first-hand the trauma of community violence and incarceration, Sammy founded Fathers and Families of San Joaquin to be a catalyst for healing, policy change, and community empowerment. Since then he has mentored and built power with thousands of young people and families from Stockton to Washington, DC working with creativity, persistence and a deep commitment to healing. Sammy has inspired national funders and cross-sector partners to invest in healing and community organizing as a primary tool for community transformation.

Fathers & Families’ story is one about respect, dignity, trust, and love. In a society that teaches us to hate ourselves, learning to love and heal ourselves and our community is a revolutionary act. We welcome everyone with open arms especially those who been forgotten and give folks a reason to live with purpose. Join Us https://www.ffsj.org/

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Unedited Episode 6 Our strength is our diversity 18

Wed, 15 May 2019 01:46:00 +0000

In this unedited episode, we feature the voice of Dillon Delvo, co-founder of Little Manila Rising. Dillon shares his passion, insights and organizational work around advocacy, education, arts, and culture as part of Little Manila Rising’s efforts to revitalize the Filipina American community in Stockton. 🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact: - Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2 - From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience. - COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community. - Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Unedited Episode 5 Be the change you want to see 17

Wed, 15 May 2019 01:17:00 +0000

In this unedited episode, we feature the voice of Lange Luntao a third-generation teacher who has taught at Aspire Langston Hughes Academy and is a self-proclaimed education nerd. Lange shares his passion, insights and organizational work with youth, parents and the school system. 🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact: - Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2 - From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience. - COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community. - Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Unedited Episode 4 All your preconceived notions are wrong

Wed, 15 May 2019 00:16:00 +0000

In this unedited episode we feature the voice of Fred Sheil the Administrator of STAND who shares his passion, insights and organization’s work over the past two-plus decades in South Stockton to address, policing, neighborhood revitalization, slumlord abatement, housing, and commercial development. 🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact: - Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2 - From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience. - COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community. - Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Owning Your Own Destiny

george@georgekoster.com (George Koster, Eric Estrada) — Wed, 15 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Nicholas Hatten is the Founder and Executive Director of the San Joaquin Pride Center (SJCP). A proven leader and agent for change, Hatten has challenged the San Joaquin County and Central Valley to evaluate how it can best serve its LGBT+ community. He forged a collaboration with the Los Angeles Pride Center and other LGBT+ agencies that resulted in a million-dollar Covered California Outreach & Education grant, the first time the Central Valley area was included in LGBT+ specific healthcare work.

As an organizer, Nicholas was instrumental in empowering local LGBT+ youth to advocate for anti-bullying resources and a focus on better school climates for LGBT+ youth on campus. This resulted in the Stockton Unified School District is the very first district in the state of California to include "LGBT" specific language in their LCFF/LCAP budget in 2016. As the recipient of one of three California Reducing Disparities Pilot Project grants, Hatten is now collaborating with California's Public Health Department on a model for increasing acceptance of LGBT+ youth in schools and within the community that will reduce the rate of incidents that lead to mental health illness among our youth.

The mission of the San Joaquin Pride Center is to serve the diverse LGBTQQIA community in San Joaquin County and the surrounding areas by creating a safe and welcoming space, by providing resources that enrich body, mind, and spirit, and by educating the public in tolerance and respect for all people within the LGBTQQIA community. https://www.sjpridecenter.org/

Donation / Fundraising
Your support of our Pride Center will help us continue to provide vital services to our LGBT community such as our LGBT sensitivity training, legal referrals, peer groups, and outreach and advocacy within the larger County community. https://www.sjpridecenter.org/donate

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

It Takes a Village

Tue, 14 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Rebekah Fenton a pediatrics resident at Seattle Children’s Hospital and longtime friend of Michael Tubbs, shares her insights into both her support of the creation of the Phoenix Scholars as well as Michael Tubbs’ drive to support access to a college education for low-income first-generation minority high school seniors. Listen to Teenagers: Gun Violence is a Public Health Problem: https://medium.com/@rdlucien/listen-to-teenagers-gun-violence-is-a-public-health-problem-2eb279b56c31

The Phoenix Scholars is the model that Michael Tubbs utilized to create the Stockton Scholars which is a guaranteed college scholarship for any Stockton Unified School District graduate. The Stockton Scholars is a program of the Reinvent Stockton Foundation which Michael Tubbs created and is managed by Michael Tubb’s friend, associate, and Stockton Unified School District Trustee Lange Luntao. Please listen to both Episode 5 [Link to Episode 5 landing page] to find out more about Mayor Tubbs’ and Trustee Luntao’s efforts to address the Stockton Unified School District problems. Find out more about Phoenix Scholars: http://www.phoenixscholars.org/our-program.html
Donate to Phoenix Scholars: http://www.phoenixscholars.org/donate.html

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Unedited Episode 7 Trust your voice and your story

george@georgekoster.com (George Koster) — Mon, 13 May 2019 23:39:00 +0000

In this unedited episode, we feature the voice of Jasmine Dellafosse who shares her experience working with Michael Tubbs as well as the Reinvent South Stockton Coalition and the Stockton Schools Initiative in organizing students to address the crime, safety, recreation, health, and the education systems in South Stockton 🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact: - Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2 - From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience. - COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community. - Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Unedited Episode 3 What choice are you going to choose today?

george@georgekoster.com (George Koster) — Mon, 13 May 2019 23:12:00 +0000

In this unedited episode, we feature the voice of Sammy Nunez the Executive Director of Fathers and Families of San Joaquin who shares his story of transformation and work with the community to support struggling community members. 🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact: - Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2 - From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience. - COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community. - Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Unedited Episode 2 Owning Your Own Destiny

george@georgekoster.com (George Koster) — Mon, 13 May 2019 23:00:00 +0000

This is the unedited interview with Nicholas Hatten the founder and Executive Director of the San Joaquin County Pride Center

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Unedited Episode 1 It Takes a Village

Sun, 12 May 2019 02:34:00 +0000

These are the unedited interviews with the voices of City of Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs’ Mother Racole Dixon, Grandmother Barbara Nicholson, and Aunt Tasha Dixon on their family legacy of community service as well as Michael Tubbs’ college friend Rebekah Fenton on the founding of the Phoenix Scholars program. 🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact: - Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2 - From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience. - COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community. - Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Homeless In San Francisco Part Three of Three Parts

Fri, 10 May 2019 21:00:00 +0000

When we first broadcast this show in 2017 the latest point in time homeless tally was 7,499 people and was fewer than the prior count in 2015 at 7,539 persons. The City of San Francisco estimates that 15% of the homeless population is families and that around 1,700 residents are chronically homeless which is being homeless for one year or more with a disabling condition.

The expectation in 2017 was that the homeless population would continue to trend downward especially with the City of San Franciso spending $300 million dollars annually in homeless he services. But, sadly since this broadcast in 2017 the latest point in time homeless count in early 2019 identified that the homeless population in San Francisco has risen by 17%. The new higher numbers are associated with national guidelines set by HUD as well as the number of people living in cars, RVs and other vehicles has risen by 45% since 2017.

In this episode, we feature the voice of:

Sam Dodge the former Deputy Director of San Francisco Department of Homeless and Supportive Housing https://twitter.com/samueldodge?lang=en

Thank you for listening to this update of our Two-Part show Homeless in San Francisco. Please rate us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and share this story with your friends. Follow me @georgekoster and please email george@georgekoster.com with questions, comments and show ideas.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Insight into the San Francisco Transportation System

Thu, 9 May 2019 22:30:00 +0000

Our voices of the community are:

Edward Reiskin the Director of Transportation of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency also know as SFMTA
San Francisco Board of Supervisor Scott Wiener who also sits on the SFMTA board and
Melvin Clark a long time Muni Operator, Driver, Trainer

Please rate us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and share this story with your friends. Follow me @georgekoster and please email george@georgekoster.com with questions, comments and show ideas

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Unpacking Gentrification: Leveraging the Shift in Communities

Wed, 8 May 2019 23:00:00 +0000

The Unpacking Gentrification: Leveraging the Shift in Communities Show will feature a panel discussion I lead with these voices of the community:
• Jose Corona the Director of Equity & Strategic Partnerships, Office of Mayor Libby Schaaf, City of Oakland http://bit.ly/25bwzPF
• Corrina Gould, Co-Organizer, Indian People Organizing for Change http://bit.ly/1Nz4Gck an
• Junious Williams, CEO, Urban Strategies Council http://bit.ly/25bwIT4
• Deborah McKoy, Executive Director, Center for Cities and Schools http://bit.ly/250Q0Hg

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The Affordability Gap and Economic Disparity in the Bay Area

Tue, 7 May 2019 23:00:00 +0000

Our panel discussion focuses on how the lack of affordability is driving the cost of living up in the San Francisco Bay Area and in turn, is continuing to expand economic disparity. Today's Voices of the Community are:

Stephanie Zamudio of the Family Independence Initiative www.fii.org
Angela Woodall of the San Francisco Public Press http://sfpublicpress.org/costofliving
Caroline Danielson of the Public Policy Institute of California http://www.ppic.org/main/home.asp

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The Digital Divide - Have & Have Nots - How Digital Skills Changes Lives

Mon, 6 May 2019 18:00:00 +0000

Our show on the Digital Divide features fellow community members and organizations that are working to provide support and solutions to the digital inequality of people who do not have the resources and access to technology. We also discuss solutions to address the discrepancy between those who have the skills, knowledge, and abilities to use the technologies and those who do not.

In this episode, we feature the voices of:

Kami Griffiths Executive Director of the Community Technology Network http://bit.ly/2M6Z1Og
Kevin Cohen, Digital Skills Trainer for the Community Technology Network http://bit.ly/2LJfMzR
Jose Muton, a Digital Learner at the Raphael House http://bit.ly/2GqtO50
Sophia Selassie, Career Development Manager at Raphael House, And
Carla Mays, Founder of Mays Civic Innovation http://bit.ly/2M6vd49

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Homeless In San Francisco Part One of Three Parts

Sun, 5 May 2019 23:00:00 +0000

Context of the Homelessness situation in San Francisco in the 2015-2016 time period when this episode was first broadcast:

• In 2004 then-Mayor Gavin Newsom launched the Ten Year Plan to Abolish Chronic Homelessness in San Francisco. Ten years and over 1.5 Billion Dollars later 19,500 homeless people (about the size of the Castro neighborhood) have been moved off the street

• But, in the 2014 survey of Homeless citizens, the number has remained almost the same over the past 2 years at around 6,686 people to a high estimate of 8,000 or almost 1% of the population of the City of San Francisco

• Homeless Citizens have gone up 27% in some neighborhoods because of the pressure from gentrification. The population has become more visible in encampments, and open drug markets in neighborhood containment zones such as Civic Center and South of Market neighborhoods

• The homeless population has become sicker older and includes more families

• Students - children that are homeless in Calif doubled since 2010 and there are over 20 Thousand homeless students in the SF Bay Area

• According to Ben Kauffman with the Office of Pupil Services at SF Unified School District around 4% of students are homeless which is estimated at over 2,000 students in the City of San Francisco

In this episode, we feature the voices of:

Chris Shaeffer, Program Director of HARTS City College of San Francisco’s Homeless At-Risk Transitional Students Program http://bit.ly/2JN3mV2
Angel Via – A City College of San Francisco student who is using the services of HARTS
Sammie Rayner – Co-Founder of Handup http://bit.ly/2GoVFT0

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Homeless in San Francisco Part Two of Two Parts

Sat, 4 May 2019 23:30:00 +0000

There are between 1,500 to 2,000 homeless families in San Francisco alone. This episode is the second part of our Homeless in San Francisco series. To get more context about our fellow citizen’s experiencing homelessness I would recommend that you listen to our Part One show. Please copy the link: http://bit.ly/2Y3rc7T

Part Two of the Three-Part series Homeless in San Francisco features fellow community members and organizations that are working on providing support and solutions to problems facing our fellow citizens who find themselves Homeless. Homeless in San Francisco Part Two features these Voices of our Community:

Emily Cohen the Deputy Director at Project Homeless Connect http://bit.ly/2LGXeAa
Sam Dodge the Director of the Office of Mayor of San Francisco's department of HOPE - Housing Opportunity, Partnerships, and Engagement http://hsh.sfgov.org/
Doniece Sandoval the Founder of Lava Mae http://bit.ly/2SFbR7N

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

What is Civic Innovation?

Fri, 3 May 2019 23:30:00 +0000

University of Wisconsin professors Satish and Priya Nambisan, says that a trifecta of austerity, complexity, and digital technology has created this new opportunity for everyday citizens to help “co-create” new solutions for solving civic problems in their communities.http://brook.gs/MsUtPU

This episode is focused on Civic Innovation and its impact on our economy, community, and democracy. In this episode, we feature the voices of:

Krista Canellakis the Deputy Innovation Officer from the City of San Francisco’s Office of Civic Innovation http://innovatesf.com/ and
Judi Brown co-founder of Civic Makers http://civicmakers.org/ and
Susan Stuart Clark a Director at Common Knowledge http://ckgroup.org/

Please rate us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and share this story with your friends. Follow me on Twitter @georgekoster and please email george@georgekoster.com with questions, comments and show ideas

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Economic Development to Address Our Economic Divide

Fri, 3 May 2019 00:30:00 +0000

This show on Economic Development and Civic Innovation features fellow community members and organizations that are working to provide support and solutions to the Mom and Pop businesses that make up a large portion of our local economy, workforce and the fabric of our community. In this episode, we feature the voices of:

Cathy Hickey, Founder of Hickey Consulting http://bit.ly/2YfgxqM
Carla Mays, Founder of Mays Civic Innovation http://bit.ly/2OpR2i5
Andrea Baker, Founder of Andrea Baker Consulting http://bit.ly/2YaWude

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Doing Business in the Bayview Part One of Two Parts

Wed, 1 May 2019 23:56:00 +0000

Welcome to Part One of Doing Business In the Bayview. This episode is focused on economic and community development efforts being executed by community members in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco, California.

The Bayview community is experiencing gentrification which in turn is pushing out some of its longtime residents and changing the face of the community. Our show features Community members discussing how they are working together to both develop and execute economic and community development solutions; while retaining Bayview’s unique blend of culture and history.

In this episode, we feature the voices of:

Andrea Baker http://www.andreabakerconsulting.com/
April Spears of Auntie April’s Chicken, Waffles & Soul Food Restaurant http://auntieaprilsf.com/about-2/
Barbara Ockel Executive Director of The Historic Bayview Opera House http://bvoh.org/aboutUs/index.shtml

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Doing Business in the Bayview Part Two of Two Parts

george@georgekoster.com (George Koster) — Tue, 30 Apr 2019 23:00:00 +0000

Welcome to Part Two of Doing Business in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco. This second show is focused on the importance of the emerging artisanal food and beverage startups in the Bayview, as well as the economic and cultural significance of the long-standing artist colony in the Bayview and Hunters Point communities.

In this episode, we feature the voices of:

Barbara Gratta of Gratta Wines – an artisanal winemaker and co-founder of Buthcertown Gourmet http://www.grattawines.com/
Marti McKee a drawing and printmaking artist and President of the Shipyard Trust for the Arts Hunters Point Shipyard http://shipyardartists.com/
Xan DeVoss of Fox & Lion Bread an artisanal master Baker and co-founder of Buthcertown Gourmet http://foxandlionbread.com/
Barbara Ockel Executive Director of The Historic Bayview Opera House http://bvoh.org/

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

The Top Three News Stories from San Francisco Public Press in 2015

Mon, 29 Apr 2019 23:00:00 +0000

In this episode, our guest is Michael Stoll the Editor and Executive Director of the San Francisco Public Press. We discussed three of the most important issues facing our San Francisco Bay Area communities and the investigative reporting that Michael and his team at the San Francisco Public Press have developed and reported on in 2015. The top three stories we discussed during this episode are:

The Resegregating of San Francisco Public Schools http://sfpublicpress.org/schooldiversity
Sea Level Rise and how it Threatens San Francisco Bay Area Cities http://sfpublicpress.org/searise
The Accelerating costs of living and how it creates more economic disparity http://sfpublicpress.org/

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

City College of San Francisco Accreditation Crisis - Part One of Four Parts

Sun, 28 Apr 2019 23:00:00 +0000

This is part one of a four-part series focused on the accreditation crisis of City College of San Francisco. City College of San Francisco’s accreditation crisis began in 2012. Over the past four years’ multiple issues and stories have been covered by the media. This four-part series attempts to provide listeners Twelve different interviews and points of view from the various Voices of City College of San Francisco and the community.
In this episode, we feature the voices of:

Kristin Charles, Interim Associate Vice Chancellor of Institutional Development Accreditation & Liaison Officer at City College of San Francisco
Special Trustee Guy Lease for City College of San Francisco
Karen Saginor Department Chair of Library and Learning Resources at City College of San Francisco

I want to thank City College staff Karen Saginor Department Chair of Library and Learning Resources, Kristin Charles the Interim Associate Vice Chancellor of Institutional Development Accreditation and Liaison Officer and Special Trustee Guy Lease for sharing their insights and how they’re each working to find and execute solutions to address the Accreditation crisis that is facing one of the community’s economic ladders out of poverty for our fellow citizens.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

City College of San Francisco Accreditation Crisis - Part Two of Four Parts

Sun, 28 Apr 2019 01:06:00 +0000

This is Part Two of a Four-Part series focused on the Accreditation of City College of San Francisco. If you are just tuning in for this show, I would recommend that you listen to our Part One show https://simplecast.com/s/dcc421a5 to provide more context to this episode.

This four-part series attempts to provide listeners with Twelve different interviews and points of view from the various Voices of City College of San Francisco and the community. In this episode, we feature the voices of:

Richard Baum, Professor of Social Science at City College of San Francisco
Rafael Mandelman - President of the Trustees for City College of San Francisco

I want to thank City College Professor Richard Baum, and President of the Trustees Rafael Mandelman for sharing their insights and how they’re each working to find and execute solutions to address the Accreditation crisis that is facing one of the City of San Francisco community’s economic ladders out of poverty for our fellow citizens.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

City College of San Francisco Accreditation Crisis - Part Three of Four Parts

Fri, 26 Apr 2019 23:00:00 +0000

This is part Three of a Four-part series focused on the accreditation crisis of the City College of San Francisco. This four-part series attempts to provide listeners Twelve different interviews and points of view from the various Voices of City College of San Francisco and the community.

If you are just tuning in for this show, I would recommend that you listen to our Part One https://simplecast.com/s/dcc421a5 and Part Two https://simplecast.com/s/255a2b15 shows to provide more context.

In this episode, we feature the voices of the community who provide their insights into the accreditation crisis, lawsuits, ACCJC, and a student's perspective.

Sara Eisenberg, Deputy City Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco and
Muriel Parenteau the Chair of Disabled Students Programs and Services at City College of San Francisco and
Wendy Kaufmyn Professor of Engineering at City College of San Francisco as well as
Eric Estrada a City College of San Francisco student

An on-going discussion that runs through the interviews and shows is the conflict between community colleges only accepting students who will get a certificate, or an Associate Arts degree or transfer to a 4 Year School; Verses community college as a community asset that supports citizens to be life long learners through providing Open Access to education so that community members can continue to reinvent themselves through education to address life changes such as re-training to secure new job skills.

The Question and Conflict to ask yourself and hopefully get engaged in…
Is City College of San Francisco open to everyone who could benefit from education or to a select few who will get a degree, certificate or transfer?

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

City College of San Francisco Accreditation Crisis - Part Four of Four Parts

Thu, 25 Apr 2019 23:00:00 +0000

This is Part Four of a Four-Part series focused on the Accreditation of City College of San Francisco. If you are just tuning in for this show, I would recommend that you listen to our Part One show https://simplecast.com/s/dcc421a5 and Part Two show https://simplecast.com/s/255a2b15 as well as Part Three show https://simplecast.com/s/415fda42 to provide more context to this episode.

This four-part series attempts to provide listeners with Nine different interviews and points of view from the various Voices of City College of San Francisco and the community. The Part Four show features these voices of the community who provide their insights into the accreditation crisis, financial management, faculty union, ACCJC, and a student's perspective. In this episode, we feature the voices of:

City College of San Francisco Board of Trustee member – Steve No and
President of the American Federation of Teacher’s Union 2121 Timothy Killikelly as well as
City College of San Francisco student David Webb

Throughout the Four-part series, I have asked each guest what would be the best outcomes of the Accreditation Crisis. It appears from the 12 different points of views in the series that City College of San Francisco is at a turning point. It could become a smaller institution offering fewer classes and operations or it could work on growing its way back to a community resource enabling community members to access education.

The future of City College of San Francisco requires the engagement of the community along with the administration, faculty, students as well as local and government officials. I hope through listening to this series you’ll get engaged in City College of San Francisco’s attempt to reinvent itself.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.

Voices of the Community's Election Day Show

Tue, 23 Apr 2019 23:00:00 +0000

Welcome to our Election Day Show. The goal of today’s show is to educate our listeners on the San Francisco Election and discuss the Pros and Cons of the key Propositions.

I hope that after listening to our show today you will participate in the election, especially given the prediction that only 25-30 percent of eligible voters in San Francisco will actually Vote. In this episode, we feature the voice of:

Ashley James – with the League of Woman's Voters Bay Area Inter-League Organization http://lwvbayarea.org/

Ashley is the Chair of Woman's Voters Bay Area Inter-League Pros & Cons Guide to the Election. We will be discussing their Pros and Cons Guide for the San Francisco Election and the propositions in detail.

We hope that after you’ve heard all this great information about the propositions from Ashley that you’ll Get Your Ballot in today before 8 pm.

🎧Explore Our Award-Winning Special Series

If you enjoyed this episode, dive deeper into our 4-part legacy of impact:

Where Art Meets Impact: How creativity drives systemic change. Season 1 and Season 2
From Bankruptcy to Reinvention: The story of Stockton’s resilience.
COVID-19’s Impact Series: Navigating the pandemic's effect on our community.
Making the Invisible Visible: Discover the untold stories of finding home.