Welcome to Voices of the Community, we strive to amplify solutions facing where we live through featuring residents like you, along with change makers, and thought leaders to support our fellow residents and people visiting or working in our area. “Our goal is to feature the unheard comments and stories from communities across our region in hopes to create dialogues to address our common problems and support the change of the status quo.” - George Koster, Creator/Host
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Voices of Change: "The Intersection of Art, Equity, & Economic Empowerment"
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1:01:45
“So if you have not tapped into community members that you are serving, that you are working with, then you are missing a large, piece of the solution to your problems”. - Heather Heslep Gentrification, displacement, the struggle for ownership... these are the challenges faced by many communities today. But what if art could be the key to preservin…
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CA Arts & Culture Summit "Arts and Health" panel
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"At the structural level, we don’t make decisions based on evidence. If we did, we would have universal healthcare and basic income. The arts can be part of this shift” - Tasha Golden Join Nefesha Yisra’el from California for the Arts as she introduces our second episode, featuring a powerful panel discussion on the intersection of arts and health.…
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The Future of Arts & Culture in California: Keynote Insights from the California Arts & Culture Summit
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59:16
"Together we can create a world where arts and culture are recognized and invested in as essential to society, embedded in community life, and intersecting with broader policy change to reshape systems towards equity and justice." - Julie Baker Join us as we kick off our second season, celebrating the vibrant and resilient arts and culture scene th…
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Discover the Artist Space Trust: Unlocking the Future of Housing for Creatives!
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"The interesting thing about a Land Trust is that it's a split title, we'll split the title and the land trust will own the land forever. And then we'll either sell or lease the housing or creative space on top of it to artists" - Meg Shiffler Welcome to the finale of our series on affordable housing for the creative workforce, brought to you in pa…
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How to Buy Your Performance Space | CAST & CounterPulse Real Estate Model
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1:00:31
"The resilience that we have to live through booms and busts and pandemics and continue to serve the community, continue to drive foot traffic, continue to create economic opportunities for local people to have jobs and work and express themselves is just incredible. So if you're struggling with a storefront or a vacancy or empty space, just rememb…
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REP-SF’s Citywide People’s Plan for Affordable Housing
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“It's about forcing the city to make sure that they build affordable housing. And there's lots of, programs that we have in the Citywide People's Plan that can make, huge steps towards, building affordable housing” - Dyan Ruiz This episode is part of our ongoing Special Series on How the Arts and Culture sector is coming back from the covid 19 pand…
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Proposition E, 2018 & Arts Impact Endowment Update & Discussion & Grants For The Arts
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"I think the action and the continuity of the coalition from Prop S to Prop E went from 40 organizations to 140 organizations. That was something that was huge” - Vin Seaman In this seventh episode of our series focusing on the arts and culture sector's recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, we bring you highlights from the Co-Production of Arts For …
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How Do Community Based Arts Orgs Secure Sustainable Funding?
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1:13:07
“Bringing the scale of human life to the community again so that we can kind of start seeing our humanity and our everyday Experiences” - Melissa Abercrombie This episode is from our November 4th 2023 live event co-production with the Petaluma Arts Center, our broadcast partners KPCA 103.3fm and Petaluma Community Access TV and BAVC Media. This spe…
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Meredith Winner - Paint the Void & Lyzette Wanzer - Author of Trauma, Tresses & Truth
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33:00
“I think really being open minded and also really trusting artists is a really big, important factor because. Artists know what they're doing, at least when it comes to making the artwork, that's why people hire them and allow them to have the most creative freedom as possible, really. Usually allows the project to be as best as it can be or as goo…
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Fernando Pujals & Rachel Osajima- How their using the Arts for Economic & Community Development
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"So of course, the pandemic was a struggle for all of us, and so we all know the arts organizations are the first to close and last open, especially the performing arts are really still struggling" - Rachel Osajima This episode is the long form of our one-on-one interview with Fernando Pujals, the Deputy Director of the Mid-Market Business Associat…
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Regional Economic Recovery Through the Arts
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59:52
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"There's been a lot of talk about, how do you make this sustainable, and there's not one answer, but one piece that is core to that, is really galvanizing and cementing around this notion that arts and culture is already right here and we need to lean into it and value it and uplift it. And in that way it won't be able to be ignored'“ - Fernando Pu…
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"So looking at how do we build an ecology where affordable housing isn't just a place you stay, it's a place you stay and work and build a business and raise a family and, you know, build the economic resources,for the next step. " - Josh Simon This episode is part of our special series on how the arts and culture sector is coming back from the Cov…
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Ralph Remington of San Francisco Arts Commission - Interview at Arts for a Better Bay Area State of the Arts Summit
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8:24
“One of the things that I, would say to this community coming from a repressed community is let’s turn to each other, not on each other. Let’s bond together, and find our commonality, not our differences. Because the enemy, I’ve seen the enemy in Arizona, and it is not us. So when we have small differences with each other, let’s recognize them for …
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Arts for a Better Bay Area State of the Arts Summit – “Economic Recovery in the Arts: Regaining Patrons and Artistic Engagement” Ep 3
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"It's all about partnering artists with small businesses to create site specific installations and that way create more exposure both for the business and for the artists and also to revitalize those corridors" - Vanessa Wilson This is our second episode from the co-production with Arts for a Better Bay Area of the re-launch of the State of the Art…
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Maria Jensen of SOMARTS Cultural Center - Interview at Arts for a Better Bay Area State of the Arts Summit
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“This is a time when the art community's creative expertise and skills and talents are being relied upon. And finally, really seen as major contributors to the local economy.” – Maria Jensen This interview with Maria Jensen is part of our co-production with Arts for a Better Bay Area of the re-launch of the State of the Arts Summit on June 28th, 20…
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Jonathan Moscone Interview at Arts for a Better Bay Area State of the Arts Summit
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"A clean city is not what San Francisco is. San Francisco is a messy city. It’s politically messy, it’s diverse. It fights amongst itself. It is San Francisco and it’s never not gonna be. So, let’s lean into the right kind of messy of San Francisco and artists can get messy. So, let’s get messy." — Jonathan Moscone, Executive Director,California Ar…
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Arts for a Better Bay Area State of the Arts Summit - Opening & Keynotes Ep 2
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52:06
“This is a time when the art community's creative expertise and skills and talents are being relied upon. And finally, really seen as major contributors to the local economy.” – Maria Jensen This is our first episode from the co-production with Arts for a Better Bay Area of the re-launch of the State of the Arts Summit on June 28th, 2023 . This epi…
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“The State of Our Arts & Culture Organizations” - Ep 1 Board & Governance
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"We wanna incentivize and give board love too. I think the board is often like the scary people or viewed as the scary people behind the curtains that are doing the work or maybe overseeing or assessing” - Michelle “Mush” Lee, Youth Speaks Our first episode of the special series titled "Insights for Building Your Nonprofit Arts and Culture Board" f…
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"There's still a lot of public resistance to the idea of giving people in homelessness cash, because, the public doesn't trust people in poverty or people in homelessness, I think that has to be corrected and addressed" - Dr. Jiaying Zhao One of the topics we have focused on through our special Covid-19 series is our unhoused neighbors' lives by or…
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San Francisco's Department of Homelessness & Supportive Housing
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“I volunteer at a safe sober space. I serve on the board of a retreat for healing that happens once a year. I serve on the Board of StartOut which helps LGBTQ + entrepreneurs gain access to mentorship and resources and fundraising to increase our representation as founders of companies. I will always do this work, because these are the same kind of…
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“It breaks my heart as a mother and a teacher almost the, majority of people who are unhoused are families with children. Sleeping in cars, sleeping in garages, and that these families, these moms and dads, aunts and uncles, they work, but again, they can't get enough together to secure safe and affordable housing”-Elizabeth Softky Welcome to our a…
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"It’s the chemistry of people, who come from very different backgrounds, you have gay, transgender, straight, and different talents and different abilities coming together and making this music and magic"-Shavonne Allen This episode features the voices of the founder of ABD Productions and the Sky Watchers Ensemble program, Anne Bluethenthal, along…
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Election 2022 - California & San Francisco Propositions Explained
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“We provide education to encourage people to vote and participate in government”-Michelle Moritz Welcome to our 2022 Election Show. Given all the propositions on both a State of California level as well as the usual too many propositions to understand on the City of San Francisco level we wanted to bring together two wonderful subject matter expert…
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The Red Shades - A Trans Super Hero Rock Opera & Z Space
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32:26
“The Compton, Cafeteria Riots and Felicia Elizondo's life living in the Tenderloin in the 1960s and trans sex workers who were fighting for their right to survive, connected with the ideas that were coming out of my mind”-Adrienne Price In this our one hundredth episode of our special series on the impact of the ongoing covid-19 pandemic on our non…
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The Reinvention of Downtown San Francisco Part 3
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52:23
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52:23
“I think the, first one that stood out to me is unlike some other cities, the San Francisco city government, is not pushing for these downtown office to housing conversions”- Sarah Wright This is part three of our three episodes exploring how the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting San Francisco's downtown neighborhood and economy along with the efforts…
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The Reinvention of Downtown San Francisco Part 2
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48:29
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“San Francisco’s tax structures are incentivizing companies to, in some cases just move entirely out of San Francisco”-Anna Tong This is part two of the three stories we are covering on how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the downtown of San Francisco and the efforts to address the issues and the reinvention of downtown San Francisco. In this ep…
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Flower Piano - Music for Plants and People in a Park
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41:50
“I always say that music is a healthy thing that we do. It's something that we strongly believe that even the flowers and the plants and the trees really enjoy having music being played for them”-Mauro ffortissimo One of the topics we’ve covered in our two plus years of producing this special series on the Covid-19 Pandemic’s impact on our communit…
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Mission Asset Fund - How Finance Changes Lives
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1:17:00
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“We heard of neighbors helping neighbors, of people dropping off food on their friends’ doorsteps, of mutual aid groups, of people becoming champions and ambassadors in their community and, showing the way to access resources and support”-Elena Fairley As millions of families accessed and received billions of dollars of financial support from the U…
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The Reinvention of Downtown San Francisco Part 1
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44:03
"I think that there is a recognition that we're all interconnected and that this area is important. It's essential for, the City and the region. I think that there is a, great opportunity for all these groups to come together and to build something great." - Chris Wright This episode focuses on the impact the COVID 19 pandemic is still having on th…
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Roots Community Health Center- Healing our Community Within
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"We are taking charge of our community. And Dr. Aboelata has coined this phrase years ago, healing our community from within. And we do have to look into ourselves to help heal what ills our communities"-Aquil Naji Over the past two-plus years, our community health care centers have faced many challenges in an ever-changing landscape, forcing them …
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San Francisco Mime Troupe - "Back to the Way Things Were"
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“Zoe is grappling with how to be an adult or starting to be an adult in a world in which she feels, there's not really a space for her to imagine a future”- Alicia MP Nelson as Zoe In this episode, we are following back up with The San Francisco Mime Troupe who we interviewed two years ago in episode four. Back in June of 2020 with the beginning of…
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"CalNonprofits was pushing for relief for the sector and contract flexibility so that we could be as responsive as possible to our communities while they were dealing with the pandemic”- Lucy Salcido Carter We know from our interview in January 2021 with Jacob Harold and Anna Koob of Candid that from their extensive study they estimated that over 4…
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Arts & Culture as Economic Drivers in Our Communities
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“First responders save lives; second responders help put people’s lives back together. Artists are essential workers in our society and our economy, helping us recover, reflect, and rebuild”-Julie Baker This episode is focused on the importance and economic impact of the arts, culture and artists on both our economy and our communities. We are host…
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It's just understanding that, life is tenuous. Life is hard and, sometimes people need help and it's all okay - David Goodman Over the past two years of producing this special series, we have brought you stories from nonprofits working on some of our long-term social issues such as homelessness, housing, hygiene, and mental health. In this one-hour…
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“They want housing to allow them to build their lives up from there…” - Poly Pop-Tart At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, we featured Sammie Rayner and Community Forward SF’s work in episode 5 and with our unhoused trans-gender, LGBTQ, and people female-identify community members. In this episode, we bring Sammie back a…
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"We have to give them something to do. You know, if you're just sitting there and this is what you see, this is who you become..." - Phyllis Opara Welcome to our one-hour special on the importance of education especially to the low income youth in our communities. We explore how the combination of the covid-19 pandemic and economic meltdown has imp…
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"I think that housing is just fundamental and it's, unfortunately, not really a right, right now in our country" - Dan Sawislak Since 1970 California has not been building enough housing especially affordable housing. The latest estimate of California's housing shortages ranges from 3 to 4 million housing units. This decades-long lack of housing im…
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Blue Heart & APIENC (API Equality - Northern California)
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"If there is anything that I've seen transformed in the past 19 months, is that more and more people are unwilling to accept what we previously accepted as normal."- Yuan Wang In this episode, our featured voices are the co-founder and director of Blue Heart Lindley, Mease and co-director of a APIENC Yuan Wang. This episode is focused on sharing th…
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"We believe in investing in the real potential of every individual in the community" - Joe Wilson In this episode our featured voices are the Executive Director of Hospitality House Joe Wilson, the Director of Community Engagement of Hospitality House Windy Click and the Manager of Hospitality House’s Community Arts Program Janet Williams. Hospital…
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How Small Businesses are using Digital Marketing and Community Engagement in a Pandemic
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1:11:02
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"It's really about connecting with your community and knowing the people around you that want you to survive and in turn supporting those other small businesses". Kristin Houk, All Good Pizza, Taco, Cafe Alma In our October 2021 One Hour Special Show co-produced with the American Marketing Association SF Chapter hear from small business owners, Mic…
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How Are Live Performing Arts Coming Back? Listen to our Panel Discussion
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For all of us remembering that the performing arts is kind of like the town square, that everyone comes to better understand their humanity, whether it's through music or dance performance, to interpret the world as it is. And as they want it to be, and they want to see themselves.” - Michael Sullivan Welcome to our September 2021 virtual live pane…
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Live Panel with Word for Word, LavaMaeX,Children's Book Project,Simply the Basics,SF GirlsChorus
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“I feel like George has brought together the pieces of a puzzle of equity with people, your organizations are approaching it from the arts, and from hygiene and literacy, it's just, lovely to see these different nonprofits surviving in this very difficult time and doing such great work”- Risa Our featured voices are Executive Director of Simply the…
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"The Tiny Homes project was going on during the Trump administration and and during and COVID and, it was really a means of people, expressing and keeping hope alive at a time when they were not feeling so much hope" - Sally In this episode the featured voices are the Executive Director of the Youth Spirit Artworks Sally Hindman and the Social Medi…
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"We want to expand the artists footprint and not just preserve what we have, but create more studio space for artists and make this the place where the creative people of San Francisco can thrive and afford to be" - Barbara In this episode our focus and theme is on our artists, and how making art and community engagement is supporting the developme…
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"I think there's a big learning about like the fragility and humanity and all our interactions. Right. And recognizing that we all belong to each other" - Nils In this episode we wanted feature the voice of a legacy social service organization that’s approach to providing a hand up to our low-income and unhoused community members is that of seeing …
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East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative
38:20
38:20
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"As the San Francisco Bay Area experienced its rapid changes as the population exploded. And in some ways, even as a diversity in the bay area exploded the folks who you didn't see, in those new faces, those new careers, those new ways of being where black and brown folks, particularly legacy and long time black and brown Oaklanders"-Noni Sessions …
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"I think we all realize from the pandemic we all belong. We all matter. Human connection is very important and we all have to look out for each other"- Mahogany Roland In this episode our featured voice is the Executive Director of Rebuilding Together San Francisco Mahogany Roland. In this week’s show we continue our focus and theme on housing and …
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Coalition on Homelessness & Street Sheet Newspaper
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For folks out on the streets, those who were not lucky enough to get a Shelter In Place hotel room. It's been very, very brutal, not having access to water. A lot of the food sources were cut off not being able to use bathrooms in cafes, et cetera - Jennifer Friedenbach Our featured voices in this episode are the Executive Director of the Coalition…
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Miracle Money - Direct Cash Transfer to Un-Housed People
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I think sometimes people make the assumption that if someone is unhoused, there's nothing in common with someone who's housed. And that's a real misnomer because I feel like we're all, ultimately one paycheck away from being unhoused - Jen Roy In this episode, our featured voices are the Founder and CEO of Miracle Messages, Kevin Adler, Miracle Mes…
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Miracle Message & San Francisco Marin Food Bank Update
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“These are people often who are experiencing homelessness, who use the ICU as a waiting room”- Kevin Adler In this episode our featured voices are the Founder and CEO of Miracle Messages Kevin Adler and the Director of Community Engagement with the San Francisco Marin Food Bank Katy McKnight. We are working on a full half hour show for next week’s …
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