all right. every year we come out to celebrate arbor day in the month of march and i'm happy to kickoff this year arbor day here at this special location. joined with us today we have several guest. i know dan is here, larry stringer is here and our colleagues and our partners in arbor day. today

like many other days, trees will be dedicated in someone who has contributed to san francisco either through their work or given back to the environment through culture, through arts and through many of the hard work and we will unveil who will receive this dedication today. as many of you know trees are very important for our communities. they provide us shade, they deter water from going into our storm systems, they provide a place for birds and butterflies and of course they help us clean our air. arbor day is a very important event. it is celebrated not just in america, but all over the world and i'm honored that we are kicking

this event. i would like to thank the mayor for bringing arbor day back to san francisco. this is our 8th arbor day. i will welcome mayor lee to the stage. >> thank you the dpw, the recreation department, to all of those who helped us in working today. arbor day, it is an annual celebration that we have struggled very hard to make sure this city appreciate because the trees are part of a great answer and solution to reducing carbon emissions and be sure we have greenery and beautification for our citizens. a lot of my friends

celebrated chinese new years in china and this year for chinese new years, wilhelm wundt wilhelm wundt of the one of the gifts they gave to the employees is an air mask. if you don't start contributing to its purification, you don't get the kind of air like you do in san francisco. this is why trees are so important to our nature and this is what i love about the city because when it comes to our environment, we do make some serious investments, whether it's green buildings, waste management or going into electric vehicles or getting everybody to change their habits, one of the habits that we want to continue having is planting trees. and so every year for the last 8 years, we

have select a signatory to plant and we have taken the liberties of honoring people that have contributed to the quality of life for all of us. in past years, people like rosa parks, caesar chavez, people that we know and are familiar with, along with people that we are not that familiar with but have made some great contributions. today we thought we would take this opportunity to celebrate an icon of san francisco. the brown twin sisters have been with us for many decades. mary is here today, she's here in celebration and memory of her sister as we all are and we want to take this opportunity to use the arbor day to have a

cedar tree, a tree that will grow taller than mary or i. it will grow to be a hundred feet tall. it will be a tree that will be celebrated here in san francisco for generations to come and we thought it would be not only appropriate, but we thought it would be our honor by planting this tree in recognition of vivian and her wonderful contributions to our city. and we are especially blessed with maryann honoring us with her presence. it's not that easy for her to get around these days but she has and continues to be part of an incredible twin sisters. but now she's also missing vivian

as much as we are and we felt this would be a proper way to create a celebratory atmosphere on how we miss vivian, how much she meant to us and take this opportunity for arbor day to plant this tree in her name. how is that, maryann for a great celebration? >> wonderful. i know my sister from heaven is watching. >> all right. she said vivian is up there applauding us and we have a great time of celebrate. ing. with that, supervisor lee, you should know, it's always been under dispute as to who is supposed to be responsible for this piece of land. was it the highway folks, the residents who built their homes here, was

it dpw, we are trying to gift it to rec's and park for nothing because it's an incredible responsibility. look at how beautiful this place it. we do keep it up. it does barrier the intense traffic that we deal with here. i travel quite a bit and everyone i know always glances here and takes a breath of fresh air a midst all of this traffic. this adds beauty and value to this area. i would like to give this proclamation to maryann and have her treasure this and the permanent memory of her sister

and how we celebrate people who are part of our culture as the brown sisters have been and also have been on literally every page of our wonderful visitors galleries, they have been in movies, commercials, they have become a part of what we see in san francisco and how we advertise ourselves around the world as a great place to live and work in. with that, with this proclamation, declares today to be vivian brown tree day in san francisco and also appropriately names this california cedar to be the tree for vivian brown in san francisco. >> beautiful. thank you all for coming. >> all right. like the mayor

said, this is a california tree. the tree bark was used for making medicine for people with stomach aches. it's also been used as a wind break and been used in many many parks. tree comes from the cypress family and the botanical name. i'm happy we are adding such a tree to san francisco and to honor the vivian brown sisters. now like we've done in many of our events, it's always an honor to introduce the supervisor of the district and like he said, we are very

familiar with this piece of land. this land has had many trees that act as a buffer to the neighborhood and the neighborhood appreciates it but we are still trying to figure out who is the legal owner of it, but in that process, dpw and the neighbors always join and the one thing we do know is we need to take care of the trees and we do that with that, i introduce the supervisor norman yee. >> thank you, i'm just one of many san franciscans celebrating this day, arbor okay for vivian brown. i'm so glad that we have an opportunity to have a celebration in this district 7 to be able to celebrate more intensely this great icon of san francisco and i just hope that i get to see the tree when

it's a hundred feet tall. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you. also as part of our partnership as many of you know we partner with many of the non-profits i see san francisco beautiful here. welcome, kristin who is a great partner with us and we also partner with other great cities. i would like to ask mr. -- to come up and talk to us if you would. >> thank you. it's an honor to be here to celebrate arbor day with you. this is an okay to celebrate our trees, in 4,000 open acres of our city we are able to enjoy and benefit from over 140,000 trees and a couple interesting facts on arbor day,

there are trees and responsible for the creation and monterey pine and different types of trees which you can find in the panhandle which was a laboratory to find what best trees can grow and they settled on those three specific trees. what i would like to say and i can thank another partner mohammed a friend of the forest who cares for the city so well. i also want to give a big shout out to the men and women who take care of our trees, the gardeners, laborers. mary, i would like to end, did you read

the book about a tree that gives and gives to a person who started out as a young boy and all throughout life he came to visit that tree and took a little bit from that tree until the tree had nothing left to give. i think you and your sister have given so much to this city and have contributed to its spirit that there is nothing that is more fitting in honoring the two of you than planting a new tree to give and give back to the community. so congratulations and i'm over joyed to be part of this honor. >> san francisco [inaudible] you take care of people and

that is wonderful. we have always enjoyed living in san francisco. it's you people, people that make this world. what would this world be with no people. so we love san francisco. never leave your heart in san francisco. always come and find it here. [ applause ] . >> okay. and also as part of my job being responsible for many trees and i can tell you that this has become one of the harder parts of my job and we have gone out and tried to get people more involved and between the right of way there are about a thousand trees and from the parks about other 120,000 trees. we are working very hard to make sure we preserve that asset. many of our trees have aged and we need

to start a process of reforestation and it involves good planning. i will ask the veteran of the department who has the policy group to advise us on what we should do as the city. melanie. >> thank you. good afternoon, everyone. it is an honor to be here on behalf of the department with all of to you celebrate arbor day. this is a department of the environment, one of our favorite days. what we support is the climate program. we look at what is our carbon inventory and where is our carbon emission come from.

we know it comes from the environment and we are working very diligently to mitigate the carbon sectors. we know that many trees is the answer to reduce the carbon emissions further. in addition it's critical to our adaptation strategy thinking about if we can't ward off, trees will continue to help us with storm waters and they boost property value where they have a robust urban forest. i wanted to mention when i first moved to san francisco, i lived on

russian hill, i would sometimes take the cable car and i would often see you and your sister see both of them smiling and the warmth they shared as twins, it brought a smile to my face everyday. as you said before you started your sister is smiling down today and it will live on for both of you, thank you. >> we are going to lower the tree and plant the tree in honor of vivian. miriam i'm so happy that you are here with us today >> i have glad to have seen all of you and hope you have a great day and never forget the beloved city of san francisco. >> we should turn around and get the shovels.

after 3. 1, 2, 3. all right. [ applause ] . all right. >> you're watching quick bite, the show that has san francisco. ♪ ♪

♪ >> we're here at one of the many food centric districts of san francisco, the 18th street corridor which locals have affectionately dubbed the castro. a cross between castro and gastronomic. the bakery, pizza, and dolores park cafe, there is no end in sight for the mouth watering food options here. adding to the culinary delights is the family of business he which includes skylight creamery, skylight and the 18 raisin. >> skylight market has been here since 1940. it's been in the family since 1964. his father and uncle bought the market and ran it through sam taking it over in 1998. at that point sam revamped the market. he installed a kitchen in the center of the market and really

made it a place where chefs look forward to come. he created community through food. so, we designed our community as having three parts we like to draw as a triangle where it's comprised of our producers that make the food, our staff, those who sell it, and our guests who come and buy and eat the food. and we really feel that we wouldn't exist if it weren't for all three of those components who really support each other. and that's kind of what we work towards every day. >> valley creamery was opened in 2006. the two pastry chefs who started it, chris hoover and walker who is sam's wife, supplied all the pastries and bakeries for the market. they found a space on the block to do that and the ice cream kind of came as an afterthought.

they realized the desire for ice cream and we now have lines around the corner. so, that's been a huge success. in 2008, sam started 18 reasons, which is our community and event space where we do five events a week all around the idea of bringling people closer to where the food comes from and closer to each other in that process. >> 18 reasons was started almost four years ago as an educational arm of their work. and we would have dinners and a few classes and we understood there what momentum that people wanted this type of engagement and education in a way that allowed for a more in-depth conversation. we grew and now we offer -- i think we had nine, we have a series where adults learned home cooking and we did a teacher training workshop where san francisco unified public school teachers came and

learned to use cooking for the core standards. we range all over the place. we really want everyone to feel like they can be included in the conversation. a lot of organizations i think which say we're going to teach cooking or we're going to teach gardening, or we're going to get in the policy side of the food from conversation. we say all of that is connected and we want to provide a place that feels really community oriented where you can be interested in multiple of those things or one of those things and have an entree point to meet people. we want to build community and we're using food as a means to that end. >> we have a wonderful organization to be involved with obviously coming from buy right where really everyone is treated very much like family. coming into 18 reasons which even more community focused is such a treat. we have these events in the evening and we really try and bring people together. people come in in groups, meet friends that they didn't even know they had before. our whole set up is focused on

communal table. you can sit across from someone and start a conversation. we're excited about that. >> i never worked in catering or food service before. it's been really fun learning about where things are coming from, where things are served from. >> it is getting really popular. she's a wonderful teacher and i think it is a perfect match for us. it is not about home cooking. it's really about how to facilitate your ease in the kitchen so you can just cook. >> i have always loved eating food. for me, i love that it brings me into contact with so many wonderful people. ultimately all of my work that i do intersects at the place where food and community is. classes or cooking dinner for someone or writing about food. it always come down to empowering people and giving them a wonderful experience. empower their want to be around people and all the values and

reasons the commitment, community and places, we're offering a whole spectrum of offerings and other really wide range of places to show that good food is not only for wealthy people and they are super committed to accessibility and to giving people a glimpse of the beauty that really is available to all of us that sometimes we forget in our day to day running around. >> we have such a philosophical mission around bringing people together around food. it's so natural for me to come here. >> we want them to walk away feeling like they have the tools to make change in their lives. whether that change is voting on an issue in a way that they will really confident about, or that change is how to understand why it is important to support our small farmers. each class has a different purpose, but what we hope is

that when people leave here they understand how to achieve that goal and feel that they have the resources necessary to do that. >> are you inspired? maybe you want to learn how to have a patch in your backyard or cook better with fresh ingredients . or grab a quick bite with organic goodies. find out more about 18 reasons by going to 18 reasons.org and learn about buy right market and creamery by going to buy right market.com. and don't forget to check out our blog for more info on many of our episodes at sf quick bites.com. until next time, may the fork be with you. ♪ ♪ >> so chocolaty. mm. ♪ >> oh, this is awesome.

oh, sorry. i thought we were done rolling. ♪ ♪ >> on december 28, 1912, san francisco mayor stared into a sea of 60,000 of constituents that gathered at geary. the berth of the first publicly

owned transit system in the city, the san francisco municipal railway. >> if you are interested in our local city government and would like to work with 18 other enthusiastic citizens committed to improving its operations, i encoura >> there are kids and families ever were. it is really an extraordinary playground. it has got a little something for everyone. it is aesthetically billion. it is completely accessible. you can see how excited people are for this playground. it is very special. >> on opening day in the brand- new helen diller playground at

north park, children can be seen swinging, gliding, swinging, exploring, digging, hanging, jumping, and even making drumming sounds. this major renovation was possible with the generous donation of more than $1.5 million from the mercer fund in honor of san francisco bay area philanthropist helen diller. together with the clean and safe neighborhood parks fund and the city's general fund. >> 4. 3. 2. 1. [applause] >> the playground is broken into three general areas. one for the preschool set, another for older children, and a sand area designed for kids of all ages. unlike the old playground, the new one is accessible to people with disabilities. this brand-new playground has several unique and exciting features. two slides, including one 45-

foot super slide with an elevation change of nearly 30 feet. climbing ropes and walls, including one made of granite. 88 suspension bridge. recycling, traditional swing, plus a therapeutics win for children with disabilities, and even a sand garden with chines and drums. >> it is a visionary $3.5 million world class playground in the heart of san francisco. this is just really a big, community win and a celebration for us all. >> to learn more about the helen diller playground in dolores park, go to sfrecpark.org.