The Bernal Heights Living Library & Think Park serves children and youth from PreK through 5th grade, and has been funded by the Department of Children, Youth, and their Families (DCYF) since 2002.  Gardens are located at Junipero Serra Child Development Center and Junipero Serra Elementary School, and operate on Mondays and Thursdays.

 

Bernal Heights Living Library & Think Park Nature Walk

In addition to the programs in place at the school sites in Bernal Heights, Life Frames, Inc. is working with the community to develop the Bernal Heights Living Library Nature Walk, which links schools, parks, public housing, streets, and other open spaces leading to the currently hidden Islais Creek at the south side of St. Mary’s Park.  The Nature Walk is creating a new, expressive, narrative landscape that is a prototype for what could be occurring throughout the whole Islais Creek Watershed, the largest in San Francisco, that interlinks eleven neighborhoods:  Noe Valley, Mission, Bernal Heights, Potrero Hill, Bayview, Portola, Crocker-Amazon, Excelsior, OMI, Sunnyside, and Glen Park.  Funding for planting California native trees and understory shrubs for this project has come from the California Department of Forestry and the California Strategic Growth Council.

The A.L.L. Student Stewards Internship Program at St. Mary’s Park & Recreation Center targets youth from low-income families in the area, and teaches them to become environmental stewards for the Bernal Heights Living Library Nature Walk. Students plant and establish California native trees and shrubs, and learn to care for them as part of this unique internship.  They are exposed to science, gardening, green-skills job training, construction, writing, and observational drawing, while earning a monetary stipend for their participation.

 For more information, contact Bonnie Ora Sherk, Founder & Director of Life Frames, Inc. & A Living Library, at bonnieora@alivinglibrary.org.