By Amiya Seetharam

As a child growing up in the Richmond District, Walden Wong spent his days biking around the neighborhood and meeting kids at the Cabrillo Playground on 38th Avenue for baseball and football games.

“We didn’t have cell phones, so we would just go out and play,” Wong said.

Decades later, now 54 years old, he still travels along the same streets, carrying groceries, sketchbooks and a sense of care for the community that raised him.

Wong is best known as a comic book inker having worked on titles like “Deadpool,” “Superman,” “Naruto” and “Pokémon.” In the Richmond, his influence goes far beyond the page. For more than 25 years, he has been an art instructor at the Richmond Senior Center and a fixture of the Richmond Neighborhood Center’s (RNC) Home-Delivered Groceries (HDG) program.

His ties to the neighborhood run deep. Many of the friends he made riding his bike around the block as a child are still part of his life.

“I have a neighbor a block away whom I met as a kid. We still keep in touch – it has been 40 years,” he said.

Wong’s decision to stay in the Richmond was not about convenience, but about connection.

“Uprooting would mean restarting everything,” he said.

Wong’s sense of belonging shows up in his art. When the RNC started a new garden project in 2017, Wong sketched a mural for the space to liven it up. Later, students from the Katherine Delmar Burke School and regular volunteers brought his vision to life.

“Walden’s artwork helped turn (the space) around,” said Yves Xavier, the community programs director at the RNC. “It brought a sense of festiveness and welcome.”

In addition to several murals at the RNC, Wong created a mosaic installation, an art bench and a bookshelf. Elsewhere in the neighborhood, at Lafayette Elementary School, he contributed a mural and an additional art bench.

Wong’s community involvement extends beyond his art. When the HDG program began a decade ago, Wong was one of six original volunteers delivering food to neighbors. Since then, he has never missed more than two weeks, showing up through wildfires, orange skies, atmospheric rivers and the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, he still delivers weekly to two seniors.

“As an artist, you’re sensitive,” he explained. “You care about people.”

Wong has built a number of long-lasting relationships with neighbors to whom he delivers groceries. One recipient gave him chocolates and relied on him to roll out her garbage bins each week.

Another recipient’s home is filled with family photos – Wong did a double take when he recognized a few faces. Some of the grandchildren in the pictures had been his classmates in high school. For Wong, these are not just drop-offs, they are opportunities to check in and form connections.

“When they’re gone, and someone else is picking up the groceries, you worry,” he said.

Wong has helped the program grow by promoting it on local news, posing for flyers and helping build a base of more than 100 volunteers.

“He’s just a positive person,” Xavier said. “He always shows up and wants to be a part of things.”

Wong also teaches art to youth and seniors and donates his artwork to fundraising campaigns.

“He strikes me as someone who always thinks about how he can help,” Xavier said. Walden noted the neighborhood has changed – children are more likely to connect through screens instead of biking around like he did – but he said he hopes future generations will still seek out neighborhood friendships.

Wong said he continues to share stories of his youth in the City with his own children: fishing off the rocks and picking watercress at Ocean Beach, visiting Clement Street stores, grabbing Slurpees at 7-Eleven and working his first job at the Jack in the Box on Geary and 11th Avenue – where he was during the 1989 earthquake.

“If Walden weren’t around,” Xavier said, “(the Richmond) would be missing someone who is invested in the neighborhood, and someone who cares a lot.”

Xavier added, “You’d wish there’d be a bunch of Walden Wongs running around.”

To learn more about the RNC’s programs, visit richmondsf.org/food-security. See more of Wong’s work at waldenwongart.com.