Pardon the dust.  We’ve been having some troubles here at the The Avenues Blog.  Techinical difficulties have started creeping into our midst, so we are going on a bit of a hiatus while we exterminate the bugs, do some upgrading, and maybe, just maybe come back with an all new rockin’ design for the blog. 

In the meantime, if you need to get your SF real estate fix – sign up for The City Update(TM) – San Francisco’s Friendliest Newsletter!

See you in a few weeks!  And if you miss me – call me at 415–307–1392 or email me.

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I recently got a note from Ben Lewis, founder and owner of Engage as You Age.

Ben asked me to share a little info about his organization, and because we all either know someone that is older and may need a friend to get through a time that can be emotionally challenging, or will eventually be older and will one day need a friend to get through a time that can be emotionally challenging, I thought it was, indeed, worth sharing.

Ben writes:

I run an organization, Engage As You Age, that works with homebound and isolated seniors and older adults. We pair them up with people who share their passions (and who also have personalities that they’ll get along well with).

 

We work throughout the SF Bay Area (including all of SF) and our office is in SOMA (on 5^th Street).

 

We’ve got a big couple of months ahead of us. We’re going to be on CBS 5 next month (filmed it recently but don’t have air date for the 5 minute spot yet) and are a finalist for a 30-minute tv show about us!

 

Since you seem to share information about community organizations, I thought you might be interested to learn more about us and share with your blog readers.

 

Engage As You Age fosters lively, intergenerational connections based on shared interests and passions. The carefully screened Activity Specialists sensitively woo homebound or psychologically isolated seniors into more active engagement with the world.

 

Regularly scheduled home visits may feature stimulating discussions based on shared passions and hobbies, a common interest in the arts, or the teaching of new skills. These sessions not only alleviate loneliness; they forge new friendships that help to lessen seniors’ reliance on immediate family members to meet their social needs.

 

Go to http://www.engageasyouage.com to learn more.

Thanks for sharing, Ben!  And if any other readers have a great local organization that they’d like to share with readers of this San Francisco blog, shoot me an email and I’ll be happy to post it!

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www.SundayStreetsSF.com  

Come play in the streets.

Sunday Streets creates a safe, fun, car-free place for people to get out and get active in San Francisco neighborhoods. Last year’s two events drew more than 15,000 people each weekend creating huge demand for more. This year, we’ve expanded the event to six Sundays, opening the streets to San Franciscans to explore four different neighborhoods and participate in a wide variety of activities, including: dancing, biking, skating, walking, hula hooping, yoga, and just people watching.

Sunday, August 9 & September 6

10am to 2pm

Go penguins to penguins.  Walk, bike, skate or waddle on car free streets from the California Academy of Science to the SF Zoo.

Bike, walk and play next to the Pacific Ocean. Travel from Golden Gate Park to the San Francisco Zoo, along Ocean Beach.

File Attachment: Sunday Streets.pdf (1463 KB)

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Western Neighborhoods Project board member and architectural historian Richard Brandi will show you how to search city records and other archives to find the builder or architect of your San Francisco house and when it was built.

Richard will demystify the process and show how you can find the information without too much heartache. The seminar is focused on houses built in the western part of SF, but many of the techniques can be applied to homes in any city neighborhood.

Please bring any building records or questions you have about your house. This is a fundraiser for Western Neighborhoods Project.

Admission is just $15 and benefits the Western Neighborhoods Project

Jul 15th, 2009 7:00pm (Wednesday) at

Covenant Presbyterian Church

321 Taraval Street @ Funston 

Contact: Richard Brandi richard@outsidelands.org

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Many people these days are finding themselves in extreme financial hardship.  Whether it’s a sudden lay off, credit card debt, or a mortgage adjusting to unaffordable heights, money problems are stressful and trying to find the solutions to those problems can be overwhelming.

Supervisor Chu and Congresswoman Jackie Speier have teamed up to help families in financial crisis.  “Crisis to Recovery”, an economic resource fair, will be held on Saturday, July 25th  at Dianne Feinstein Elementary School.  HUD-approved, non-profit credit counselors will be on site to explain your options with mortgage, credit, and debt problems.  Representatives from various City Agencies will have information on employment, healthcare and other resources.   Learn from speakers about how to seek a mortgage modification, property tax reassessment and avoid foreclosure scams.  Counselors will be available in Cantonese, Mandarin and English.

Free registration begins at 9:30 am at Dianne Feinstein Elementary School at 2550 25th Avenue.  For more information about “Crisis to Recovery”, call our office 415-554-7460 or email us at chustaff@sfgov.org.

File Attachment: Crisis to Recovery Flyer July 25_2009.pdf (3078 KB)

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Adam Greenfield recently produced a video with the Neighborhood Empowerment Network covering the first Inner Sunset farmers market back on June 7th.

As expected, the Farmer’s Market was a hit!  

As an aside, there are more Farmer’s Markets to come in San Francisco, including one coming to the Outer Sunset as well!

Adam also founded the Inner Sunset Neighborhood Group of Facebook, which he still helps run.

Through the Facebook page, several hundred members have a steady stream of information to keep in touch with the Inner Sunset neighborhood. The group also organizes monthly social gatherings, which have gotten a great response since they began last December.

The community is really taking off now. And if you live in the Inner Sunset, I’m sure you’ll enjoy being a part of it!

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Urbia Adventure League kicks off the first Saturday of Summer!

View the city from secret hilltops where butterflies delight via a new adventure booklet

What: Unveiling of new sense-of-place seasonal treasure hunt for San Francisco families

When: This Saturday, June 27th, drop-in between 10 a.m. and noon to pick up a free adventure packet

Where: Starting at the bottom of the colorful mosaic stairway at 16th Avenue and Moraga Street

This summer, a staycation opportunity debuts in the form of a new series of outdoor “sense of place” treasure hunts for families. Urbia Adventure No.1 is being offered for free and guides you to numerous surprises as families work as a team to solve riddle-like clues in a booklet titled “Islands in the Sky.” Adults and children together sharpen their abilities to read the natural landscape features easily missed in this urban environment and enhance their future travels in the city or out in the wild.

Unlike traditional guided tours, Urbia Adventure League offers themed, seasonal adventures-by-mail that allow you to decide when to go and who to bring along. The tools: an adventure booklet, a pencil and a team’s collective wits and senses. The rewards: serendipity, a deeper “sense of place” in San Francisco, and fun team-building. Each journey is an experience to treasure, and a hidden box at the end contains an added reward for finding your way by solving the clues in this new booklet.

Following his recent outing, travel writer Larry Habegger remarked “Finally I discovered that amazing wild land in the heart of the Sunset and got to explore it with my family. My girls can’t wait for our next Urbia adventure.”

Upcoming booklets will explore rocky outcrops near Twin Peaks and a unique „green‟ corridor in the Mission District. Subscriptions to the Urbia Adventure League benefit San Francisco non-profit Nature in the City.

For more information about this new San Francisco tradition, please visit www.urbikids.com or contact Damien Raffa by calling 415.992.8141, or email@urbikids.com.

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TICKETS ON SALE THIS MONDAY, APRIL 6, FOR
 
TUTANKHAMUN AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE PHARAOHS

AT THE DE YOUNG MUSEUM

 

SAN FRANCISCO (April 1, 2009) — Tickets to this summer’s highly anticipated exhibition, Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, go on sale to the general public online on Monday, April 6, 2009 (please note that the de Young is closed on this day). Tickets go on sale at the museum on Tuesday, April 7. The exhibition opens on June 27, 2009 at the de Young Museum and runs through March 28, 2010. The de Young is the only venue for this exhibition north of Los Angeles and west of Dallas.
 
Advance purchases are recommended to secure tickets for desired date and time.  On weekdays (Monday-Thursday), ticket prices are $27.50 for adults, $25.50 for seniors 65+, and $16.50 for youth ages 6-17. On weekends (Friday-Sunday), ticket prices are $32.50 for adults, $30.50 for seniors and $16.50 for youth.  Children ages 5 and under are free at all times.
 
A special Family Package is available that includes admission for two adults and two youth plus four audio tours.  This package is $99 on weekdays and $109 on weekends, a savings of $17 over tickets purchased separately.
 
Tickets can be purchased online through Ticketmaster (www.ticketmaster.com); by calling 877.TUT.TKTS (877.888.8587); or in person at the de Young’s admission desk as of April 7. For groups of ten or more please call the group sales office at 415.750.3620.
 
The exhibition is organized by National Geographic, Arts and Exhibitions International and AEG Exhibitions, with cooperation from the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.  Proceeds generated from the tour are being used to help preserve Egypt’s treasures, including the construction of a new museum in Cairo where antiquities will be housed.
 
The exhibition will be open to the public daily from 9am-9pm from June 27 through September 30, 2009. The exhibition will resume with new hours from October 1, 2009 through March 28, 2010.  These hours are 9am-6:30pm (Tuesday-Sunday) and 9am-8:45pm on Fridays.  Mondays will be reserved for school group visits.
 

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs provides insight into the life of Tutankhamun and other royals of the 18th Dynasty (1555-1305 BC).  All of the treasures in the exhibition are more than 3,000 years old.
 
Tutankhamun was one of the last kings of Egypt’s 18th Dynasty and ruled during a crucial, turmoil-filled period of Egyptian history.  The boy king died under mysterious circumstances at the age of 18 or 19, in the ninth year of his reign (1323 BC).  Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings was filled with magnificent treasures meant to ensure his divine immortality. Many objects belonging to the young king, including exquisite personal items used in his daily life, were placed in the tomb.
 
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs offers glimpses of that critical period in Egyptian history. On display will be 50 of Tutankhamun’s burial objects, including one of the gold and precious stone inlaid canopic coffinettes that contained his mummified internal organs.  Also included are many of the day-to-day objects enjoyed by the young king including a finely crafted child’s chair and an inlaid game board, one of four in the tomb.
 
The de Young presentation is part of a U.S. encore tour.  New to the encore tour are two nested coffinettes that contained the remains of two fetuses that are now undergoing DNA testing to reveal their relationship to King Tut. Also new to the exhibition from Tutankhamun’s tomb is a beautiful bracelet featuring a central image of a scarab representing the sun god. An elaborate pectoral, a masterpiece of jewelry making, contains a rare, yellow-green glass stone carved in the shape of a scarab beetle that some scientists believe to be a fragment of an ancient meteorite.
 
More than 80 additional objects from tombs of 18th Dynasty royals, as well the possessions of elite individuals with close connections to the royal family also will be exhibited.  These stone, faience and wooden pieces from burial sites before Tut’s reign will give visitors a sense of what the burials of both royalty and the elite may have been like and what the Egyptians of that time considered essential for the afterlife.
 
Northern Trust is the proud cultural partner of the exhibition, and American Airlines is the official airline. The San Francisco presentation is sponsored by Mrs. Thomas B. Crowley, Sr.
 
 
EXHIBITION IMAGE SITE
 
EXHIBITION WEB SITE
 
ABOUT THE DE YOUNG
The de Young, designed by Herzog & de Meuron and located in Golden Gate Park, showcases American art from the 17th through the 21st centuries, international textile arts and costumes, and art from the Americas, the Pacific, and Africa.
 
Address:                      Golden Gate Park
                                    50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive
                                    San Francisco, CA 94118

Information:                 www.deyoungmuseum.org
                                    415.750.3600

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Sunset Farmers Market – Exploratory Survey

The Sunset Neighborhood Beacon Center and Supervisor Carmen Chu’s Office are working with community members and the Pacific Coast Farmers Market Association to explore the possibility of starting a Sunset Farmers Market.  We would like to hear your thoughts.  Please complete this super short survey (only 5 questions) to let us know what you think.  If you already filled out a paper survey, we’ve got you covered, otherwise respond now!

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Help San Francisco Celebrate Arbor Day!
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Sunset Boulevard at Ortega Street
9 am to 2 pm
Plant and care for trees in a major reforestation effort along San Francisco’s Sunset Boulevard.

More information at www.sfarborday.org

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