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Adopt-An-Alleyway Youth Empowerment Project
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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.
Volunteers clean the alleyways of San Francisco's Chinatown, organize monthly programs for seniors, and provide tours with Chinatown Alleyway Tours.
project started in 1991 by Reverend Norman Fong, a member of the Chinatown Community Development Center, and a Chinatown advocate, where he recruited high school youths to help him on his quest to beautify the alleyways in San Francisco's Chinatown.
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Encyclopedia
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.
Volunteers clean the alleyways of San Francisco's Chinatown, organize monthly programs for seniors, and provide tours with Chinatown Alleyway Tours.
History
This project started in 1991 by Reverend Norman Fong, a member of the Chinatown Community Development Center, and a Chinatown advocate, where he recruited high school youths 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, while graffiti and trash poured relentlessly over Chinatown's alleyways, so he decided to start the project. As of 2007, alleyways are still not considered a street because they do not meet the 32ft 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
The Adopt-an-Alleyway (AAA) is a combination of its volunteer, the cabinet, and the coordinator. Monthly general meetings are held in the first Friday of each month, where all the volunteers come together to discuss and review the upcoming events for the current month. Usually, every second Friday of each month, the AAA cabinet will have their own meeting, supervised by the coordinator, where the cabinet plans the activities and organizes the events. The cabinet is composed of a president, vice president, two secretaries, 4 social chairs, and 3-5 cabinet leaders. The events/volunteer services done by the organization includes, tenant services, Super Sunday, and cleanup/graffiti removal every 2nd Saturday of the month. 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 that lives there, therefore, bridging the intergeneration gap. Super Sunday is and event where the youth helps 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 breaks into groups of 4-8, lead by the cabinet into the alleyways of San Francisco's Chinatown, where they sweep the alleyways or paint over the graffiti.
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.
As part of the project, the AAA also offers tours that usually leaves from Portsmouth Square, and tours some of Chinatown's alleyways.
List of Chinatown Alleyways in English and Chinese
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