Bike-Out to support the Mission Food Hub
This Saturday, expect more than 1,000 bicyclists — many of them young — to ride from the Mission District to Fort Mason and back in a community gathering with food, music and vaccines, said Roberto Hernandez, co-founder of the Mission Food Hub.
The hub is organizing the event with assistance from AJ Stuntz, a child stunt rider with more than 22,000 Instagram followers.
Participants will begin gathering at around 11 a.m. at the John O’Connell High School parking lot on Harrison Street, where there will be burritos, DJing and a raffle. The Department of Public Health will administer Covid-19 vaccines until 2 p.m. There will also be fundraising for the Mission Food Hub, where volunteers distribute 7,000 to 9,000 boxes of food each week.
Bicyclists will depart at 1 p.m. to head up to 24th Street and then toward Valencia Street, where they will turn south to Cesar Chavez Street and west to Third Street to end up at Aquatic Park, Hernandez said. There will be social distancing, he added, and police will lead the way to clear the path.
Volunteers will prepare food so riders can return to an early dinner. The event ends at 5 p.m.
It’s the second big bike-out fundraising for the food hub; the first took place on Cinco De Mayo and attracted more than 1,000 bicyclists, Hernandez said.
It all began as smaller group ride-outs in the Mission, Hernandez said. Last year, parents visiting the hub would tell Hernandez that the shelter-in-place order left children sad, anxious and depressed. Hernandez said he asked some children what they wanted, and they told him they wanted to bike, but mothers were cautious.
Hernandez asked parents whether they’d be OK with their children biking if an adult like himself were supervising, and they told him yes, he said. So, it began with Albert, an intern at the Mission Food Hub, leading about a dozen children at a time on rides. Other adults eventually joined in.
More people wanted to join, and the Mission Food Hub helped families acquire bicycles. Arturo, one of the volunteers, drove to every K-Mart and Target he could find, as far as San Jose and Concord, Hernandez said. Local businesses, including Valencia Cyclery, pitched in.
“Three here, four here, five there,” Hernandez said.
They’ve acquired more than 900 bikes.
This is the second big event, but it’s common these days, said Hernandez, to see groups of children to ride out in the neighborhood.
“What organically it’s been able to create is promoting health and getting these young people out of their houses, out of being stuck in a chat-box or gaming, off the computers, off their phones and getting them out to exercise,” Hernandez said. “It’s been excellent for their mental health.”
BART Mural
A new mural covers the shed at the 16th Street Bart Plaza.
The artist, Mission resident Sam Flores, painted it last week. It’s the latest mural brought to life by the nonprofit Paint The Void.
Paint the Void connected with Eric Rodenbeck, CEO of Stamen Design and a board director of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. The foundation funded the mural through its discretionary award, which will also cover expenses that may be needed repaint the mural in the event of vandalism.
Shannon Riley, co-founder of the art consulting agency Building 180, co-founded Paint the Void during the pandemic to create murals across the Bay Area in a time of ever-present vacant storefronts. The initial goal was to paint 10 murals, she said. As of now, the organization has paid artists to create more than 150 across the Bay Area.
Library branches reopen
Nine branches of the San Francisco Public Library system reopened with full in-person services this week.
Reopened Monday, branches in Bernal Heights and Western Addition will be open Monday through Friday; reopened Tuesday, branches in Bayview, Eureka Valley, Glen Park, Noe Valley, Ocean View, Parkside and Presidio will be open Tuesday through Saturday.
The hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
See the reopening schedules for all branches here.
Filipino tricycle karaoke planned for the Exploratorium
Karaoke will return in spectacular fashion on Thursday from the side-cart seat of a Filipino-style tricycle at the Exploratorium.
Transformed into public artwork that can be driven around by its creators as a cultural marker for SOMA Pilipinas, San Francisco’s Filipino Cultural Heritage District, this version is called the TNT Traysikel. Intended to increase the Filipino community’s visibility citywide, it’s adorned with artwork from visual artist Mike Arcega, filmmaker and graphic designer Paulo Asuncion and designer and sign-painter Michelle “Meng” Nguyen.
The TNT Traysikel will be on stage with a host from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. on July 29 at the Exploratorium for adults, where Arcega hopes audience members will join tricycle passengers in song.
“In the past, people would sing along with the person singing karaoke, and it would just become this really fun party, where it’s really just a light-hearted event,” Arcega said. “We hope that folks will feel comfortable going up there and being in a Filipino side-car and belting out a song with folks who live in San Francisco or are in the Bay Area.”
Arcega and Asuncion, the project’s co-collaborators, regularly drive the TNT Traysikel across San Francisco and Daly City, often stopping in the Mission District to put it on display. They’ve used it to deliver groceries to those vulnerable to Covid-19 before vaccines were available and have shown up at protests to demonstrate Filipino solidarity with Black Lives Matter and against Asian-American hate.
The Filipino-style tricycle is essentially a motorcycle attached to a side-cart used by many across the Philippines to get around, especially those carrying heavy loads. They’re not unlike taxis, but they can also get people to areas where cars can’t, such as through narrow roads and hillsides.
Arcega said he’ll often personify the artwork as if it’s an immigrant: It’s from the Philippines, it came to the U.S. a decade ago and the Filipino-style side-cart now “married” to a Japanese-American motorcycle.
“And,” he added, “it used to live in Modesto, but now it’s here in San Francisco, doing things for the community.”
Why is there still no date for the Mission branch to reopen?