Foundation Donors Invited to Tour TLHIP Partners

The TLHIP Tenderloin Tour took place on October 19, 2018 under sparkling blue skies. Starting at 826 Valencia’s Tenderloin Center, the group met with Bita Nazarian, Executive Director, and Allyson Halpern, Development Director, to learn about their successful podcasting program supported by a TLHIP grant from the Saint Francis Foundation Associates White Caps Night Caps fundraiser. We listened to a podcast from Ashleigh, age 12, who attends DeMarillac Academy. “Emergency” brought home how powerful storytelling can be as a tool for processing traumatic experiences in youth.

On our walk through the neighborhood we visited other TLHIP community partners. We learned about sacred sleep at the Gubbio Project at St Boniface Church, how St. Anthony’s Dining Room feeds 2,400 people each and every day, clothes 150 others and provides daily addiction recovery services to 70 clients in need, and how Code Tenderloin is providing job readiness and workforce programs to hard to reach populations in the Tenderloin with extraordinary results.

We finished the tour at the clubhouse at Boeddeker Park – the safe and active community hub in the heart of the Tenderloin neighborhood. There we heard about other TLHIP investments at work from our partners at the Boys and Girls Clubs, Tenderloin Police and Tenderloin Community Benefit District. We shared stories over lunch and everyone left with a deeper sense of how organizations can work together to uplift the community and align their efforts for deeper impact.