Adopt-An-Alleyway Youth Empowerment Project

The Adopt-An-Alleyway Youth Empowerment Project is a non-profit project of the Chinatown Community Development Center that is based in the San Francisco Chinatown area.[1]

Adopt-An-Alleyway Youth Empowerment Project
Formation1991
TypeYouth Empowerment
Headquarters655 Clay Street
San Francisco, California
94111
Membership
~100
WebsiteOfficial Website

Volunteers clean the alleyways of San Francisco's Chinatown, organize monthly programs for seniors and children, and provide tours with Chinatown Alleyway Tours.[2][3][4][5]

History

This project started in 1991 when Reverend Norman Fong, a member of the Chinatown Community Development Center and a Chinatown advocate, recruited high school youth from Galileo High School to help him on his quest to beautify the alleyways in San Francisco's Chinatown. Back in the 1980s, the City of San Francisco did not officially recognize alleyways as city streets, so nothing was done to maintain them, leading to excessive amounts of graffiti and trash in those areas. For this reason, he decided to start the project. As of 2007, alleyways are still not considered to be streets because they do not meet the 32 ft width requirement, although other alleyways outside of Chinatown are. As of 2007, there are about 30+ members in the youth empowerment program, and 10 paid workers.

Volunteer life

Adopt-an-Alleyway (AAA) consists of volunteers (general and cabinet members) and coordinator(s). Monthly general meetings are held on the first Friday of each month, where all the volunteers come together to discuss and review upcoming events for that month. The cabinet will have their own meeting every second Friday of each month, supervised by the coordinator, to plan activities and organize events. The cabinet is composed of a president, vice president, two secretaries, four social chairs, and three to five cabinet leaders. The events/volunteer services done by the organization include: "Tenant Services," "Super Sunday," and clean-up/graffiti removal.

"Tenant Services" is done twice a month, where the youths go to single room occupancies around San Francisco's Chinatown and interact with the seniors who live there, bridging the intergeneration gap.

"Super Sunday" is an event where the youth take care of kids while their parents are having SRO meetings at Gordon J. Lau Elementary School.

Clean-up/graffiti removal is where the youth break into groups, led by the cabinet, to sweep or paint over the graffiti of the alleyways of San Francisco's Chinatown.[6]

Awards

On May 12, 2007, The project won the 2007 Crissy Field Heroes award and has a video spot at the Crissy Field Information Center.[7][8]

As part of the project, the AAA also offers tours of Chinatown's alleyways, beginning at Portsmouth Square.[5][9]

List of Chinatown Alleyways in English and Chinese
  • Commercial Street - 襟美慎街
  • Wentworth Street - 德和街
  • Beckett Street - 白話轉街
  • Waverly Place - 天后廟街
  • Ross Alley - 舊呂宋巷
  • Walter U. Lum Place - 林華耀街
  • Hang Ah Alley - 香亞街
  • Spofford Alley - 新呂宋巷
  • Old Chinatown Lane - 舊華埠巷
  • St Louis Place - 聖路易巷
  • Jack Kerouac Alley - 亞打罅巷
  • Stark Alley
  • Joice Alley

[10]

References
  1. Wright, David J. (2001). It Takes a Neighborhood: Strategies to Prevent Urban Decline. Rockefeller Institute Press. ISBN 0-914341-83-9. ... and the Levi Strauss Foundation awarded the group a $25000 youth empowerment grant. Since the ... participants in the Adopt an Alleyway Youth Project ...
  2. "49ers Clean for a Cause". San Francisco 49ers. Archived from the original on October 28, 2008. Retrieved 2007-10-31. An outreach program of the CCDC, the Adopt-an-Alleyway Youth Empowerment Project was designed to make the city of San Francisco aware of all the neglected alleys, so that they may be safer and better maintained for Chinatown residents and visitors.
  3. "Rebuilding Chinatown After the 1906 Quake". National Public Radio. Retrieved 2007-10-31. Chin wants tourists to see more than the neighborhood's many exotic restaurants and trinket and souvenir shops. So he has organized the "Adopt an Alleyway" Tours, conducted by young Chinese-Americans, to take tourists into Chinatown's alleys where they can see certain landmarks, such as Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory along Ross Alley, which is the oldest alleyway in San Francisco's Chinatown.
  4. "Chinatown Community Development Center". San Francisco. Archived from the original on 2007-10-15. Retrieved 2007-10-31. The Adopt an Alleyway (AAA) project has allowed young people to do organizing and community service that benefits the entire Chinatown community. Through weekly meetings, youth learn about community issues and then pick those they are most concerned about. They brainstorm and develop projects to address those issues with staff support. Currently, they organize monthly programs for seniors in two low-income housing and children that live in SRO housing, as well as the youth-led Chinatown Alleyway Tours. They will be working to enforce renovation and building inspections of Chinatown’s SRO's, create more safe transportation opportunities for youth through MUNI and for educational justice.
  5. "Chinatown Alleyway Tours". Chinatown Alleyway Tours. Retrieved 2007-10-31. Chinatown Alleyway Tours (CATs) will take you off the main streets, to learn about the daily culture, rich history and modern day issues of San Francisco's Chinatown.
  6. "Adopt-An-Alleyway (AAA)". Chinatown Community Development Center. Archived from the original on 2008-02-22. Retrieved 2007-10-31. Chinatown CDC founded the Adopt-An-Alley Youth Project in 1991. ... Currently there is a youth leadership of over 35 youth who actively monitors and conducts regular clean-ups (at least 10 times a year, including two major alleyway work-a-thons) of all alleys in Chinatown.
  7. AAA Community Heroes
  8. Yollin, Patricia (2007-05-11). "Honoring Chinatown". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-10-31. A group of young people, most with roots in the historic district, began by scrubbing and sweeping its historic alleys. Now they're giving tours, too. ... The three return to the old neighborhood frequently. They're part of the Adopt-An-Alleyway Youth Project, which will receive a "community hero" award Saturday from the Crissy Field Center.
  9. Tour Guides Archived July 4, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  10. San Francisco Chinatown Alleys
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