The History of Friends of Sunset Boulevard

Working and Advocating for a Cleaner, Greener more Beautiful Sunset Boulevard

• In 2018 a small group of neighbors began to push for the revitalization of Sunset Boulevard. These neighbors began posting on the Sunset District NextDoor Page (“the NextDoor posters”) about their concerns with the deterioration of Sunset Boulevard, the City’s lack of a meaningful plan to correct the situation and encouraging neighbors to join them in contacting City officials to advocate for the Boulevard. 

• As conditions along Sunset Boulevard continued to decline; the degradation of the 60 acres Sunset Boulevard greenway reached a level that triggered scores of neighbors living along and near Sunset Boulevard began, quite organically, to reach out to City officials – Supervisors, the Mayor, SFMTA, etc. – to advocate for something to be done to improve conditions on Sunset Boulevard. And some of those neighbors and community members began talking to and strategizing with each other to amplify their efforts and impact.

• We lobbied Supervisor Katy Tang to look into why Sunset Boulevard was in such decrepit condition, and what could be done to fix it. Many emails ensued, and resulted in a visit by Mohammad Nuru, Director of Public Works (DPW), the city department in charge of care and maintenance of Sunset Boulevard. Director Nuru came for an onsite visit and walkthrough with a group of neighbors. Not much happened. At that time, Supervisor Tang’s office had begun to organize neighborhood cleanup events. There were toolboxes placed at various locations along Sunset Boulevard that any resident could access to weed or pick up litter. Supervisor Tang, in a 2018 video produced by Public Works, loosely referred to these ad hoc resident volunteers as “friends of Sunset Boulevard.”

• 2018 => 2019 – Throughout the latter half of 2018 and into 2019 ad hoc groups of neighbors had formed on NextDoor and other social media platforms and began to share information and assist each other in advocating for the betterment of Sunset Boulevard. Their collaborative efforts had already begun to have an impact, gathering the attention of then-D4 Supervisor Katy Tang in the autumn of 2018 and her successor, the erstwhile Supervisor Gordon Mar. By May 2019, Supervisor Mar began planning for a Summer 2019 townhall meeting to discuss the deteriorating condition of Sunset Boulevard and what could be done about it.

• On May 21, 2019, Lisa Arjes and Kathleen Larson initiated discussions about holding a meeting to organize the loose confederation of neighbors acting collaboratively on behalf of the Boulevard into a more formally structured group. 

• Neighborhood lobbying efforts with newly elected Supervisor Mar culminated in a Town Hall specifically focused on Sunset Boulevard on June 6, 2019 – Supervisor Gordon Mar held a Sunset Boulevard townhall at Saint Ignatius Prep. High School with approximately 100 neighbors and community members in attendance.

• Immediately following that meeting, one of the NextDoor posters (who no longer lives in San Francisco) put a message on NextDoor suggesting the formation of a group to advocate for the Boulevard and asking anyone interested in being a part of that group to send her a direct message on NextDoor. 

• Seven individuals responded to those two organizing calls and were invited to a meeting with Gordon Mar’s legislative aide, Edward Wright, on June 26, 2019, to outline concerns and explore the ways the Supervisor might assist the group.

• Encouraged by the community’s engagement at Supervisor Mar’s townhall, those seven individuals, who had all been active in the prior year’s collaborative efforts, met and decided to form an unincorporated neighborhood association that would, shortly thereafter, come to be known as Friends of Sunset Boulevard.

• All of these accomplishments, whether big or small, we did together.

• 2020 => 2022 – During the duration of the COVID-19 Pandemic the work of the unincorporated association now known as Friends of Sunset Boulevard continued during a difficult time for Sunset Boulevard, San Francisco and the entire planet. When two of the original co-founders moved away, the governing group of equal co-founders shrunk to five (5). Since its inception; Friends of Sunset Boulevard had functioned, by California law, as an unincorporated association (as defined by the California Corporations Code) with seven (7) – and after early 2020; five (5) – governing co-equal founders and members of the Core Team of Friends of Sunset Boulevard, eschewing titles and hierarchy.

• 2022 & 2023:

  • A slightly smaller and leaner Friends of Sunset Boulevard with 5 co-equal co-founders forming the governing Core Team emerged from the pandemic and through dedication, persistence and perseverance was able to work with Supervisor Gordon Mar to secure a first-in-decades budgetary commitment to improving conditions on Sunset Boulevard in the FY 2022 City Budget. 

    • $1.4 million to initiate the connection of Sunset Boulevard’s irrigation system to the recycled (graywater) pipeline that runs parallel to it from a new Recycled Water Treatment Facility within the limits of SF’s existing Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant (WPCP) to Golden Gate Park. For most of the length of the Boulevard the recycled water pipeline runs under 36th Avenue before, at Lawton, it routes a few blocks east to 34th Ave prior to entry into GGP. [History of Irrigation on Sunset Boulevard]

    • $935,000 for Boulevard irrigation system repairs and additional infrastructure installations to prepare the greenway for future recycled water connection and use as well as current, limited potable water irrigation. [History of Irrigation on Sunset Boulevard]

    • $1 million (each year for two years) to hire additional gardeners to maintain and improve the Sunset Boulevard greenway. This budgetary line was intended to be dedicated funding for gardeners on Sunset Boulevard, although for various reasons that vision was not realized and a dedicated team of gardeners, irrespective of size, was never created.

  • While this was the first significant investment of budgetary authority to fund improvements on Sunset Boulevard, sadly this funding has not had all of the promised impacts. Despite $2 million in funding ($1 million each year for 2 years) a dedicated cadre of gardeners for Sunset Boulevard has not been realized by DPW. While funds were allocated and appear to have been expended; staffing difficulties and competing demands with gardeners needed in other DPW work districts has prevented the department from forming a team of gardeners dedicated to Sunset Boulevard.

  • Additionally, while the potable irrigation system repairs and infrastructure additions have progressed now (in 2026) to near completion, along with quick-coupler installation and other infrastructure additions also having been completed along nearly the entire length of Sunset Boulevard; DPW has been testing and utilizing the irrigation system throughout the summer of 2026 after serious delays in this phase of the overall potable to recycled water irrigation transition. [History of Irrigation on Sunset Boulevard]

  • Meanwhile, the connections of the Sunset Boulevard irrigation system have only just recently emerged from planning and design stages, indicating that this project as well is significantly behind schedule. [History of Irrigation on Sunset Boulevard]

• 2024:

  • Friends of Sunset Boulevard worked with former Supervisor Joel Engardio to secure a funding commitment for an additional $2.9 million for FY 2024 to move DPW closer to the $10.5 million total needed for the Sunset Boulevard Recycled Irrigation Project to move to completion. But even this additional funding allocation did not speed up the design process of move the project toward design completion and construction launch.

• 2025:

  • June – Friends of Sunset Boulevard helped secure a compromise between the Office of the Mayor, SF Public Works (DPW) and SF Rec & Park (RPD) that; in lieu of jurisdictional transfer of the Sunset Boulevard greenway care and maintenance from DPW to RPD; RPD would partner with DPW to increase gardening efforts and greenway attention to cleaning and greening Sunset Boulevard.

  • June – the Friends of Sunset Boulevard governance group contracted again when two equal co-founding members of the Core Team left the organization; one of those departing members eventually formed her own advocacy organization.

  • June – The three remaining co-founding members, together with John Crabtree (Core Team member since 2024), formed the majority of the Core Team and continued the day-to-day work of the association.

• 2026:

  • March 10th –the Core Team, including the three remaining co-founders and John Crabtree, perfected the organizational structure of Friends of Sunset Boulevard and filed paperwork to become a registered California nonprofit public benefit corporation. 

  • April 25th – Friends of Sunset Boulevard, in partnership with SF Public Works, held a volunteer day where approximately ten Friends of Sunset Boulevard volunteers and approximately 20 Public Works employees installed a low-mow/no-mow drought resistant red fescue meadow above the retaining wall at the 36th Avenue and Lincoln Way overpass above Sunset Boulevard. 

    • This Pilot Project was developed and proposed to SF Public Works by Friends of Sunset Boulevard leaders.

  • May 2026 – Friends of Sunset Boulevard volunteers kicked off the “Be A Ladybug, Not a Litterbug” campaign to clean up Sunset Boulevard by picking up trash all along the length of the Sunset Boulevard greenways on 36th and 37th Avenues from Sloat to Lincoln Way.

  • June 2026 – Friends of Sunset Boulevard participated in SF Public Works’ Sunset Boulevard Cleanup Day joining over 50 volunteers to pick up trash on Sunset Boulevard.

  • June through September – Friends of Sunset Boulevard hosted “Trash Walks” on the third Saturday of each month from 9:00 to noon. Year-to-date, combining results from the aforementioned clean up days and multiple ad hoc Trash Walks each month (sometimes more than one in a week); thus far Friends of Sunset Boulevard volunteers have collected over 2,500 lbs of trash on Sunset Boulevard. 

    • “Highlights” = car tires; bike tires and other parts; a plastic tub of motorcycle parts; propane tanks and thousands upon thousands of cigarette butts picked up during Friends of Sunset Boulevard Trash Walks.

  • July 9th – Friends of Sunset Boulevard initiated, in partnership with Public Works Bureau of Urban Forestry ~~ The Friends of Sunset Boulevard Tree-Herder Project

    • Since that date Friends of Sunset Boulevard Tree-Herders Have tended to more than 240 trees on Sunset Boulevard so far (1,300 more to go)

  • July 11th – One City Day – SFPUC Rain Garden on Sunset Boulevard: Friends of Sunset Boulevard with the SFPUC Rain Garden Team and 40 community volunteers participated in the inaugural One City Day by planting 75 native plants at the Sunset Boulevard Learning Lab (a.k.a the rain garden across from St Ignatius). Fabulous turnout (40 volunteers)! Awesome partnership with the SFPUC Rain Guardians. There are over 30 rain gardens along Sunset Boulevard, which altogether manage 4.9 million gallons of stormwater each year in the Sunset Watershed. These rain gardens are planted with specifically selected native plants. The bees and hummingbirds were busy working the native sages and ceanothus while we did our work!

    • Thank you to all who came out! We truly appreciate the City’s One City Day, DPW, SFPUC Rain Garden Team and all the Rain Guardians and volunteers who came out to beautify the Sunset.

    • Of course, we have more events coming up! Please sign up at our events page!

    • If you are interested in becoming a rain guardian, please sign up at https://www.rainguardians.org/ 

  • September 5th – Peace Park Pop-up Cleanup

    • Trash Talk: Thank you to all the volunteers that came out for our first pop-up litter cleanup on Sunset Boulevard! We launched this pop-up event from Peace Park. If you haven’t been to Peace Park, you should check it out! It is truly lovely! We want to give a special shout out to the student volunteers who picked up trash along the Boulevard! With their help, we removed 9 bags of garbage, including 2 speakers, a blown-out car tire, and hundreds of cigarette butts from the Boulevard greenspace!

      • Year-to-date: Friends of Sunset Boulevard and volunteers like you have removed over 2500 pounds of trash from the Boulevard!

  • September 19th – Regular Monthly Litter Clean-up — third Saturday of each month — 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. — meet at 1453 36th Avenue.

  • October 17th — Regular Monthly Litter Clean-up — we had the most ever volunteers at our October Boulevard Beautification Day Clean-up, 20 volunteers joined us and picked up 23 bags of trash from the Sunset Boulevard Greenway from Lincoln Way to Sloat on 36th and 37th Avenues. Thank you to our volunteers, all your combined efforts have removed a 2026-total of over 2,700 lbs. of trash from Sunset Boulevard. Notably, the October 17th clean-up resulted in another 80 lbs. of trash from Sunset Boulevard, which is a considerable amount but a little less in total weight compared to earlier months because we found no large, heavy items. Consensus among recurring volunteers is that collecting fewer pounds of trash while covering the entire length of Sunset Boulevard (from Lincoln Way to Sloat Boulevard) with more volunteers than ever before results from conditions on the Boulevard improving, less littering due to greener and cleaner conditions. In other words, our cleaning and greening strategy is working!

  • Regular Sunset Boulevard Beautification & Clean-up Days will continue to happen every third Saturday of each month.

    • We will be meeting at 1453 36th Avenue.

      • Sign up on our website.

      • https://www.friendsofsunsetboulevard.org/

      • Hope to see you there!