Dozens of volunteers will roll up their sleeves on Saturday morning and head to the Tenderloin to help pick up trash, paint over graffiti and power wash the neighborhood’s streets.
The quarterly Tenderloin Community Clean Up is expecting to bring out about 100 volunteers who will meet up at the Phoenix Hotel at 601 Eddy St. The group is then expected to walk a few blocks up, down and around the hotel, cleaning and painting before they return to the hotel’s parking lot for a free lunch.
The event is organized by the Civic Joy Fund, a program under the Civic Space Foundation, a self-described group composed of artists, volunteers and small-business owners seeking to bring economic recovery to San Francisco.
“I think the media has painted the Tenderloin to be, like, this scary, not-thriving place,” said Angelina Polselli, director of community engagement for the Civic Space Foundation, which is just a year old. “In actuality, there’s a ton of really good restaurants down there, and this beautiful art community that is starting to form with a ton of really cool local indie art studios.”
The event is also sponsored by other local organizations, such as Refuse Refuse and the Tenderloin Community Benefit District, as well as the city’s Public Works Department, which is expected to collect the trash picked by volunteers and provide garbage bags, gloves and trash pickers.
“If we want to make San Francisco better we need to get to know each other and get involved in the community. All it takes is showing up to one of these events,” said Polselli. “You don’t have to start a nonprofit to make change.”
The Tenderloin Community Clean Up will start on Saturday July 13, 2024, at 10 a.m. at the Phoenix Hotel at 601 Eddy St. The event is expected to last for an hour and a half.