Candlestick Point Eco Stewards

Everyone should have the opportunity to thrive in a clean, healthy and just environment. Yet San Francisco’s Bayview Hunter’s Point community has long faced disproportionate challenge to this right due to industrial pollution and massive job loss since the late-1960s. Although the neighborhood contains only 4% of San Francisco’s population, it is home to more than two-thirds of San Francisco’s pollution sources and approximately one-third of the city’s hazardous waste sites.

Established in 1979, Candlestick Point State Recreation Area (CPSRA) is a 3.2 mile unique coastal resource that holds tremendous potential as a place for community members connect with their natural heritage and each other. In fact, this was the vision when it was first developed as a “State Park for the People.” At that time, a powerful “Friends of Candlestick” group - comprised of local community members - played an integral role in CPSRA being developed.

“Candlestick is the example of if you leave people to their own devices, they really do have sense, and that really is what the fundamentals of democracy ought to be about. Instead of us always having to react to other people’s visions for us, Candlestick was one place where people were able to express their own vision for their own park and their own neighborhood – and that’s ultimately what came about.” - Community Leader Claude Everhart

Yet today, no identifiable group of friends advances the original vision or protects the park, which leaves the hopes and goals for CSPRA largely unfulfilled.

CPE seeks to fill these gaps, serving as the point of connection to engage community members, youth, volunteers and supporters in coming together to restore ecology, improve environmental health, and strengthen community.