Community Partners

Beautiful Beginnings Arts Collective's Mission is to inspire and nurture artistic expression and gratitude for our multicultural traditions. Through education, hands-on experience, and teamwork, we aim to provide Bay Area youth with rich visual, musical and movement art forms for them to carry on a lineage of artistic traditions as tomorrow’s leaders, teachers and elders.As a community of seasoned educators, mentors, organizers and creative risk takers who uphold common values of humility, respect and joy, we center youth artistic development.  While we operate as an independent, grassroots group, we collaborate with established schools and community organizations. 

EarthBaby the compostable diaper service was started by two Bay Area dads in 2008.

After searching for a convenient and environmentally friendly alternative to disposable diapers they found that single-use compostable diapers were available, but no service existed to actually compost them. They learned that unless these diapers were composted by a licensed commercial compost facility, they would still end up in the landfill where nothing has a chance to compost.

Disposable diapers constitute the 3rd largest contributor (by volume) to US landfill sites today. EarthBaby addresses this problem and closes the loop, ensuring that diapers stay out of the landfill.  Currently EarthBaby diverts more than 16,000 pounds of diaper waste from Bay Area landfills each week and converts it to nutrient-rich soil.

The Excelsior Collaborative engages and empowers residents and community stakeholders to enhance the quality of life for all in the Excelsior. The Greater Excelsior Area (GEA) is a strategic initiative of the Excelsior Collaborative, whose mission is to build a stronger, safer, healthier, and more connected community. By convening a cohort of individuals, organizations, and civic networks, the Collaborative drives change at the policy and program levels via a collective impact approach. By crafting and implementing a culturally competent Resilience Action Plan, Resilient GEA will advance and sustain the neighborhood’s overall resilience.

Instituto Familiar de la Raza is a community based organization providing mental health and educational services to the Latino/Chicano communities of the city of San Francisco for the last 40 years. 

June Jordan School for Equity (JJSE) is a small high school located in the Excelsior neighborhood of San Francisco. The school is named after writer and activist June Jordan, whom Alice Walker called “the universal poet.”

JJSE was founded in 2003 through a community organizing effort by a group of teachers, parents, and youth, with the explicit goal of providing better educational options for students who were not being served well in traditional schools.  We are located in the Excelsior neighborhood of San Francisco and enrollment is open to all high-school students in San Francisco.   JJSE is part of San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) and provides an alternative model within SFUSD’s portfolio of school options.  In keeping with this alternative status, JJSE has been officially designated as a SFUSD Small School by Design  and an Alternative School of Choice by the California Department of Education (see California Education Code Sections 58500 through 58512)

JJSE strives to work alongside the communities of southeast San Francisco as part of a social justice movement which includes among its goals offering a high-quality education to all youth in the city, not just those from certain neighborhoods or backgrounds.  We are committed not only to prepare students for college, but to honor the traditions of their communities by teaching students to be leaders who are prepared to work for a more equitable world.

Mission Neighborhood Health Center (MNHC) is a designated federally qualified health center by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). MNHC honors our Latino roots with a tradition of providing compassionate, patient-centered care. We advocate for health equity and deliver innovative, high quality services responsive to the neighborhoods and diverse communities we serve.

Mission Neighborhood Health Center offers healthcare for the whole family in a welcoming environment at four convenient locations in the Mission and Excelsior neighborhoods. Our compassionate, committed medical staff offer adults, seniors, teens and children culturally-sensitive quality care in English and Spanish. We welcome patients who are uninsured and low-income and offer affordable healthcare on a sliding fee scale based on the patient’s income and family size. For more information about our services and programs, please call (415) 552-3870 or visit our website at www.mnhc.org.

San Francisco Birth Center offers comprehensive midwifery care in a safe home-like environment. As midwives, we believe that birth is a normal physiologic process. We trust in the innate wisdom of the body and honor pregnancy and birth as a powerful time of transition in a woman's life. SF Birth Center is a comfortable place to bring your baby into the world under the gentle hands of experienced midwives.