The Golden Gate Park Panhandle workday Saturday, June 13 was advertised as an opportunity to help improve the area by removing litter and completing yard work. But the volunteers who offered nearly three hours of their time that day probably ended up improving themselves more than anything else. And that is not to diminish the effort completed.

The group, under the leadership of Mary Helen Briscoe from the Panhandle Residents Organization/Stanyan Fulton (PRO/SF) and Guillermo Basquez, SF Park and Rec Gardener, consisted of five individuals from the Asian American Residential Recovery Services (AARRS).

Located in the neighborhood since 1985 at 2024 Hayes St, AARRS is a long-term 26-bed, residential drug and alcohol treatment program. Though it targets the Asian and Pacific Islander population, the five AARRS residents at the Panhandle workday represented Asian, African American, and Caucasian backgrounds.

It is one of over nine residential care facilities for drug and alcohol rehabilitation within PRO/SF’s borders, which — part of Supervisorial District 5 — spread from Stanyan St. on the west to Masonic St. on the east and from Turk St. on the north to Oak St. on the south.

In fact, one of PRO/SF’s pointed issues of concern is the density of such facilities in the neighborhood, as District 5 houses one third of the city’s residential care facilities. And though it claims this “overconcentration” takes away potential customers for the neighborhood’s small businesses by reducing available housing and that the addition of any more facilities would be “unfair,” at least where the Panhandle is concerned, PRO/SF might want to reconsider its stance on having groups like the AARRS around.  

Panhandle workdays occur once a month, co-sponsored by PRO/SF and the North of the Panhandle Neighborhood Association (NOPNA), both of which address similar concerns involving the neighborhood, its safety and its development. But a majority of the regular volunteers are from the AARRS, whose program — among the individual, group, and family counseling, educational seminars, and recreational activities —also stresses community service.

“I try to volunteer as much as I can,” said Yolanda Salone, an AARRS resident. “It’s a breath of fresh air. I like the outdoors. I enjoy being in this environment. This is like a healthy meditation for me.”

It is the consistent commitment of AARRS volunteers like Salone, that, according to Basquez, make them particularly valuable since they are familiar with how the work is done and don’t need much instruction.

And because Basquez is one of only two gardeners for the entire four block Panhandle, efficient help is golden.

“Pruning all the bushes, if I had to do that all myself it would take probably three weeks. When we work together it takes one day,” Basquez said. “The same with putting down mulch. To spread that pile alone would take me one week. With all of us here, one morning.”

Volunteers typically help Basquez in spreading compost under the trees, clipping branches, raking, filling in holes or ditches often made by dogs, and picking up trash – of which, unfortunately for the Panhandle, there is a large amount. Because of its location on the border between the city and the greater expanse of Golden Gate Park in addition to the high number of homeless in the area, the Panhandle often receives more trash and beating than other areas.
“This is the first shock, the first sponge of urban parks in San Francisco,” said Basquez. “People come and put a lot of trash in the Panhandle.”

Volunteers find and remove everything from syringes and razor blades to toys and magazines.
The goal of each Saturday workday is to keep the park clean and safe for the public. But for the residents of AARRS, that’s not the only thing achieved.

For Salone, a mother of three who suffered with a crack cocaine addiction for 10 years and now has been in the AARRS program for nearly one year, working in the park is a reminder of her recovery.

“You look at this dirt here, and it’s all brown,” said Salone. “But after you water it, plant it, take care of it, nurture it, things can grow, and it turns green and beautiful. It stands out. That green, people love to have it around. And that’s how I relate to my recovery. It’s the same for me when I nurture myself and respect myself and love myself. Because when I was in my addiction, no one wanted me there. In my addiction, I was nothing but dirt. Trash all over the place.”

And for resident Thai Lau, his service acts as a positive alternative outlet to replace his substance abuse, as well as a way for him to lead by example in the AARRS community. It’s an obligation he feels from having been in the program for 18 months and being further along in his recovery.

“I want to let people know I want them to do something positive,” said Lau. “Instead of sitting at home drinking or doing drugs, there is time to do something to make them feel good about themselves. All of these people, they are my second family.”

Lau suffered with an alcohol addiction for 15 years that destroyed his marriage and his job and eventually left him on the streets. His two daughters, Laura, 28, and Tiffany, 23, motivated him to “get back on the right track and do the right things.”

“It’s got to be a lifetime process to work on myself,” said Lau. “How to be a better person, how to live my life happy so I don’t have to depend on any other substance.”

And if there ever was a place to find a healthy distraction, it certainly is the Panhandle Saturday morning. A never-ending, steady stream of bikers, joggers, and dog walkers fills the park’s path while children run on the play structures and various groups spread themselves across the grass lawns and courts to practice karate and tai chi. It’s what has kept Briscoe, the workday’s organizer from PRO/SF, coming back for the over twenty-five years that she’s lived in the neighborhood.

“The trees are beautiful. The lawns are wonderful. It’s nice to see all the activity and all the people involved with it,” Briscoe said.

Because PRO/SF’s main goal is to build the neighborhood into a community of neighbors interacting with one another in the area where they live, the group considers the Panhandle a valuable asset to protect and enhance.

It’s next project for the Panhandle is the creation of a brochure and a map of the park to identify the many tree species and explain the history of the Panhandle, as in the 1870s it acted as a testing ground and nursery to find suitable vegetation that would later be planted in the larger Golden Gate Park. Species like Bailey's Acacia, Japanese Yew, Black Walnut, Blackwood Acacia, Queensland Kauri, and Italian Alder all found a home in the Panhandle.  

“There are trees here from all over the world,” said Briscoe. “It’s kind of like a little museum.”

PRO/SF currently has submitted a grant application to SF Beautiful with the hopes of receiving at least enough funding to begin identifying the trees and the health of the trees for the brochure.

The next Panhandle workday is planned for July 11, 2009 at 9 am.

--Michelle Gantos