Community Involvement

I am thematically out of order to end the year after trying to make a Christmas metaphor last month. But, since I’m writing this column before Thanksgiving, I want to reflect on things I am thankful for this past year, including being able to highlight our wonderful little neighborhood.

While I won’t strain to make a connection to the early settlers being helped by Native Americans, it is with the sentiment of cooperation that I would like to frame a change in mindset before heading into 2024.

Instead of being thankful for the bounty of a harvest, I want to acknowledge a thankfulness for the ways I’ve been able to get involved in the community. Too often we focus our gratitude on how we have benefited and not with a more outward mindset. As such, I want to highlight three local organizations that I have had the pleasure of working with.

An organization that has deep roots in the neighborhood is the Park Presidio-Sunset Lion’s Club and I’m proud to call myself a member. A service organization, we raised funds this past year through various events, like a golf tournament and an afternoon of bingo, to be able to distribute those funds to various other organizations. We help collect eyeglasses for recycling and plan to bring back our annual blood drive in the spring. While just a small part of a larger international organization, it is a great little community of service-oriented individuals who have endured the pandemic and are working toward growing the club’s impact.

Homegrown within our streets is the story of Vince Yuen and the volunteer force of RefuseRefuseSF, which organizes clean ups all around our City. While my initial involvement was as just another clean-up volunteer at Ocean Beach every month, buying into Vince’s vision helped me realize that we can all do more to help establish a culture of cleanliness in the neighborhood. Stopping trash from reaching the ocean is a side benefit of an Outer Richmond clean up.

Another real benefit I’ve found leading these clean ups is meeting new people who want to get more involved in the neighborhood and trading knowledge about places to go and things to do around town.

New to the neighborhood is a little group that got its start as Revive SF Chinatown and now goes by Dear Community. I originally met them when their goal was to bring people back to the restaurants in Chinatown in 2021.

The organization has expanded its scope and now includes community building and addressing mental health issues. Recently, it helped a couple of businesses on Clement Street with its Dear Community Bites Back program. By bringing customers to recently-broken-into Lung Fung Bakery and AceKing BBQ, not only did it provide extra revenue, but it also highlighted the plight still facing many small businesses in our neighborhood.

While these are the three community organizations I’ve found myself most involved with this past year, there are so many other great ways to stay active in the neighborhood. Longtime institutions, like the YMCA, Richmond Neighborhood Center, Golden Senior Center and Self-Help for the Elderly, are easy ways to get involved locally. There’s even the new creative gathering space Friends & Neighbors on Sixth Avenue for young people looking to connect with the community. Although I can’t list them all here, the Richmond District is full of organizations where individuals can be helpful.

So, I’m looking forward to 2024 with an eye on how else to help out around the Richmond. Civic pride is what I’m thankful for in 2023 where I’ve seen so many people get involved in and around the district.

Be it helping the environment, small businesses, social causes or just neighbors helping neighbors, I’m glad to live in such a robust community of people who take pride in rolling up their sleeves and making sure we are here for a better Richmond.

Brian Quan is a Richmond District native, co-leader of Grow the Richmond, president of the Chinese American Democratic Club, member of the Park Presidio-Sunset Lions Club and participant in monthly RefuseRefuse street clean-ups.