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EAG INVITES YOU TO JOIN US FOR THE GRAND OPENING of OCEAN TAQUERIA 4787 Mission Street Friday, January 31st - 1:00 P.M.to 2:30 P.M. Light Refreshments Served Mel Flores Interim Executive Director Excelsior Action Group 415 275-4539 [email protected]
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 Excelsior Heritage Night – Register Now! January 24th, 2020 No Comments »
The Heritage in the Neighborhoods program will kick off in the Excelsior District with a free and open public gathering on March 25, 2020, 6:30 PM at the Italian American Social Club of San Francisco (25 Russia Avenue). Register Now! Come learn about the Excelsior’s architectural and cultural history, and progress on creating the district’s first City Landmark. Add your vote for the Excelsior’s most important buildings, and find out how you can help celebrate and defend this neighborhood’s unique heritage. Presented in partnership with the Victorian Alliance of San Francisco, Excelsior Action Group, and the Western Neighborhoods Project/OpenSFHistory.org, with participation from the San Francisco Planning Department. Light refreshments will be served, and we encourage you to stay on for a classic Italian meal at the IASCSF’s restaurant, a neighborhood gathering place for over 80 years. *This event is free, but please register so we can keep track of our room capacity. If you have any thoughts, ideas, and questions as we plan this program, please reach out to Kerri Young at [email protected] or call 415-441-3000 x22. We welcome interest and participation from anyone and everyone for this exciting program!  Sidewalk trees also improve property values. Sidewalk trees increase property value, provide wildlife habitat, reduce the speed of traffic, absorb carbon dioxide and other pollutants, are associated with lower asthma rates in young children, and established street trees are also associated with a lower level of crime! You can help bring these benefits to your neighborhood! With the passage of Proposition E voters approved giving back to the Department of Public Works Urban Forestry, responsibility for the trees in public spaces and sidewalks. Earlier this year Friends of the Urban Forest (FUF) planted trees in the Excelsior and Mission Terrace neighborhoods, including along the Mission Street commercial corridor. In late-August FUF will be planting trees in Crocker-Amazon and will be holding a community outreach meeting July 17th when they will ask for volunteers to get the word out and sign up interested property owners.. Now that the City again is responsible for tree maintenance and sidewalk repairs you may be able to sign up for a tree to be planted in front of your property. As part of Supervisor Ahsha Safai's commitment to the community to improve the look of the neighborhoods, more tree plantings are coming to the district this year and beyond. Planting trees is a great way to get to know your neighbors, have fun; and make our community a quieter, prettier, and greener place to work and live! For District 11 property owners, there is NO cost of a tree (which is typically $105 plus a $30 FUF membership). FUF and DPW will coordinate with property owners to cut the concrete area, plant the tree, water it, and maintain it for 18-24 months. To sign up to get a tree, please print, complete, and mail or fax the attached forms to FUF. To volunteer, please contact Caitlin Moon at [email protected] or 415-268-0772. The Fall Excelsior Sunday Streets is Approaching Fast--Would You Like to Volunteer? The October 14th Sunday Streets in the Excelsior will be a day of celebration.. As in past years EAG will be partnering with Sunday Streets f to make the day a success.
But a lot of preparation needs to be done before the day of Sunday Streets 2018, from walking flyers to informing merchants, hanging door hangers and posters, and helping set up. We are looking for volunteers to help plan the EAG spots at the Fall events. For more information about volunteering, please contact Stephanie Cajina at: 415-585-0110 or [email protected].  Dear Excelsior Community, Great News! After 3 years of displacement from EAG's San Juan offices following the December 2016 fire upstairs, EAG has moved back into its original offices at 35 San Juan Avenue, just off of Mission Street and Ocean Avenue. The Excelsior Action Group is now positioned to help business recovery during this historic COVID-19 pandemic to continue to support Excelsior merchants in a variety of ways, improving their facades, helping businesses become more accessible for their disabled customers, developing websites and marketing plans, and encouraging residents to explore the corridor and shop locally. Once fully staffed EAG will again have the opportunity to plan and support some wonderful events in the neighborhood. Even though EAG operated at a desktop and out of a box, we've accomplished key milestones. EAG is now a fully registered & operational non-profit, a qualified City business partner and actively involved with the Excelsior and Outer Mission Visioning Project . Our fully-functioning Board of Directors is busily structuring EAG to meet its Mission for years to come and fully committed maintaining the highest level of service to the community. Come see our original & new space when we can again mingle and look for EAG to continuing doing great things in the district!
Excelsior Coffee, Lea Sabado, 11/17/17 The community loves a welcoming spot with great coffee, delicious sweets, art, and friendly service. Meet Lea Sabado and Andre Higgenbotham, owners of Excelsior Coffee opening in the new year at 4495 Mission Street in the Excelsior. But it’s been a long road from dream to reality for this young Excelsior couple. “You have to be ambitious, resilient and not get undaunted by City Hall and the planning department if you want to open a new business,” Lea said. After a year of searching for the right roadmap for opening a new business and cutting through lots red tape, Lea and her husband Andre, will open the doors of Excelsior Coffee in the long-vacant Pink Spot clothing store this coming February offering specialty coffee with an array of espresso coffee bar selections, a drip station, coffee beans, and pastries to reflect her Filipino-Hawaiian heritage and Andre’s Mexican roots. Though Lea has worked professionally providing tax and accounting services to small business owner-managers for the past nine years, she found the task of getting her own business of the ground both challenging and time consuming. “Our location was not registered with the City so we needed legal help locating the history of the lease. Jorge Rivas from the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development sent me to EAG Executive Director Stephanie Cajina the”, Lea said. “She connected us with Legal Services for Entrepreneurs who really helped us. I wish I had gotten to Stephanie much sooner.” Many people readily think of the Excelsior Festival, the Ever Upward sculpture at Geneva and Mission, the transformation of the Kenny Alley steps across from Safeway, and other beautification projects as EAG’s sole mission. But the core of EAG’s mission is to provide support to new and existing businesses like Excelsior Coffee to the revitalize the Mission Street corridor. “EAG and Stephanie are a virtual rolodex of knowledge on navigating all the nuances of opening a business in the Excelsior,” said Lea. “Stephanie has the neighborhood history and the relationships. She linked us to like-minded businesses and neighbors, in addition to City Hall and planning department connections. And if she didn’t know an answer right away, she found out for us.” Besides artisanal, small batch, single-origin coffee from Roastco and ethnic pastries from local sources, Excelsior Coffee will feature rotating art exhibits and offer summer internships to youth from Washington High School where Andre teaches history. “We look forward to meeting our neighbors and our community, and we are in it for the long haul,” Lea said. Pedestrian Safety Signage ProjectThe Excelsior Action Group’s latest pedestrian safety project installed new signs and placards at ten intersections to draw attention to pedestrian safety on Mission Street, one of the city’s most dangerous pedestrians corridors. The southern Mission Street corridor, is part of the city’s High Injury Corridor Network, the 13 percent of city streets where 75 percent of severe and fatal traffic injuries occur..
The installations –– a sign announcing the number of pedestrian injuries at each intersection, a chalk ‘X’ painted in the street and informational placards –– are meant to educate pedestrians and drivers about the dangers of the streets. One sign reads “from July 2011 to June 2016, 11 crashes were reported on Mission Street between Leo and Russia, 1 pedestrian was injured.” “We’re trying to build awareness of how dangerous our streets are,” EAG executive director Stephanie Cajina said. Portions of Geneva Avenue, Ocean Avenue, Mission Street and Alemany Avenue east of the Balboa BART Station are all on the city’s High Injury Network. A second phase of the project will install banners at the Persia Triangle to draw more attention to traffic safety. The project was funded by a grant from the Department of Public Health and inspired by a similar project in Los Angeles called X-ing on Adams. Persia Triangle and Annie Street Plaza featured in new video !
Pavement to Parks is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year! To help mark the occasion, the Program launched a video series highlighting the residents, small business owners, artists, and advocates creating new public spaces in their neighborhoods. The third video in this seriesfeatures the passionate individuals who banded together to create Persia Triangle Plaza in the Excelsior and Annie Street Plaza in South of Market. Is there a place in your neighborhood where you'd like to test an idea for a temporary plaza? Perhaps it's an empty lot, a really wide but not often used part of a road, or small alley? Team up with your local neighborhood organization to put together a Pedestrian Plaza Proposal! |
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