Kreative Kids Kare About Koshland Park

Rebecca Bozzelli & Suzi Palladino

Kids enjoy a celebratory BBQ after Koshland Park workday in October

Photos: Barbara Wenger

With the harvest season coming to an end, the gardeners of Koshland Community Learning Garden decided to organize a positive, interactive project to bring the youth of this community together for one last gathering before the rain arrives and the garden lapses into winter dormancy. In celebration of a freshly painted tool shed, we wanted to provide a medium for the kids to express their creativity, so we put together the youth art opportunity: Kreative Kids Kare about Koshland Park.

The purpose of the opportunity was to awaken the creative spirits of the Hayes Valley/Western Addition Youth and give them the opportunity to design a mural that they would like to display on the tool shed. Many of the youth of this community spend their weekends and afternoons in the park. This opportunity gave them a chance to creatively express their ownership of the Park. This art opportunity specifically requested the youth to design a mural that depicted their feelings about the gardwwen.

We invited the students at John Muir Elementary School and the Hayes Valley South local neighborhood to participate. The participants were given about a month to design a mural and submit it to various locations in the neighborhood.

Once we received the drawings we had a celebratory BBQ with the community gardeners of Koshland Park and members

the neighborhood sponsored by Rainbow Grocery Cooperative. At this BBQ the community members were asked to judge the drawings and anonymously select their favorite After much deliberation we realized that we couldn’t just choose one drawing - they all were inspirational and magical in their own element.

Fortunately, we contacted a local artist, Bill Logan, and he has agreed to compose one giant mural that has a single component of each design we received from the participants. The final composition is in the works and should be on display by the beginning of December, so please come by and check it out! This event was especially amazing because we were able to unite the community by honoring the energetic spirit of the youth. We would like to offer a special thanks to the community members of this neighborhood and, of course, the illustrious Rainbow Grocery Cooperative!