Your HVNA Membership Makes a Difference

By Richard Johnson

In a conversation the other day about HVNA, Frances said “HVNA is a group run with lots of elbow grease on a shoe-string budget.” The elbow grease was clearly evident to me last Sunday as I looked around at all the community members gathered for Patricia Walkup’s Memorial Celebration. As both a founding member and board member of HVNA, I know first hand the constant financial struggle we face as an association to assure we can fund our annual operating budget. So I write this article as a neighbor to encourage you to continue the legacy that Patricia left by either becoming a new member or renewing your current membership so HVNA can continue to be a leader for positive change.

So Far So Good

The neighborhood of Hayes Valley is a committed group of people dedicated to maintaining the unique diversity our neighborhood. As a community, Hayes Valley has:

• Become integrally involved in community policing since the early nineties
• Led the way to tear down a freeway and create the award winning Octavia Boulevard
• Reclaimed a neighborhood through an active community policing program
• Rebuilt Koshland and Rose/Page Mini Park
• Saved the Page Street Garden from being sold by SLUG so that now it has become another city park
• Created Patricia’s Green in Hayes Valley
• Created a vibrant business community in Hayes Valley
• Rebuilt Hayes Valley North and South housing sites
• The HVNA T&P committee under Patricia Walkup oversaw all major development in Hayes Valley
• Participated in the Market Octavia Plan and maintains an excellent working relationship with the Planning Department
• Spearheaded Neighborhood Disaster Preparedness outreach by partnering with Hayes Valley NERT to recruit Block Captains and promote emergency preparedness and training throughout Hayes Valley and the Western Addition
• Continues to shape, through community discussion, the development plan for the former UC Berkeley site at 55 Laguna
• Recently we formed the first-ever PTA at John Muir Elementary School

I personally know how much the neighborhood has changed since I moved here in 1991. This transformation is a direct result of the partnership formed between HVNA and a core of compassionate, dedicated and hard working individuals. Now it is your time to show your support for HVNA by becoming a new member or renewing your membership at a higher level. So I am asking you as a neighbor to take the time to fill out and return the membership form in this edition of the Voice.