Our Cookin’ the Night Away live auction item winners from the 2018 Paving the Way gala were delighted to have Four Seasons Executive Chef Cyrille Pannier join them for a lively evening of food and fun on Nov. 3! With their hosts Suzi Alexander, Patrick Kiss and Sherilyn Adams, along with Jennifer and Chris Brahm and Sally Shapiro,…
Our partnership with the San Francisco Young Adult Court (YAC), which began this summer, will help even more young people transcend homelessness in the years ahead. Founded on studies suggesting that young adults’ brains are not fully developed (and therefore they may not understand the impact committing a crime will have on themselves or others),…
Experiencing homelessness presents many unforeseen challenges including the inability to choose where to sleep, when to wake, and what to eat or wear. During this holiday season, please give the gift of choice back to our young people by donating an item from the list below! GIFT CARDS: Ross Safeway Target Walgreens VISA GIFTS (assortment…
Dear Friends, The last few months have been a whirlwind of special guests and events that have advanced the movement to end youth homelessness in significant ways. Between the passage of legislation like State Bill 918 to clearly designate a state-level lead for youth homelessness and partnerships with Salesforce and the City of San Francisco,…
So proud of Team Larkin Street for accepting the Skyline Challenge again this year, raising over $10,000 for Outward Bound programs for young people experiencing homelessness! Among the brave rappellers and fundraisers were Sally Shapiro, Allison Wysocki for an impressive fifth year, and Willis Newton, one of the top two fundraisers for the entire event,…
Thanks to Congregation Emanu-El for hosting a Yom Kippur discussion with young people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco. Guest speakers included Rabbi Jason Rodich, Director of Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing Jeff Kositsky and UC Berkeley’s Dr. Colette Auerswald. Young people from Larkin Street, Zak Franet and Anubis Daugherty shared their experiences with homelessness…
A young person in Larkin Street’s programs, KAR, was invited by our partners at Dropbox to showcase his artwork in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. “Sueños de Mezcal,” KAR’s collection of paintings, features the endangered Axolotl, also known as the Mexican Salamander. We are so proud of KAR for presenting his pieces and answering questions from the…
For the first time, San Francisco is truly prioritizing the needs of young people experiencing homelessness through Rising Up, a new public-private partnership which aims to cut youth homelessness in half by 2023. This initiative is a result of years of advocacy by young people and staff from Larkin Street working in partnership with City…
Thanks to the growing support of our community, nearly 2,500 young people experiencing homelessness received help, hope and so much more! Thank you for your commitment to ensuring that every young person can reach their full potential. Read more about our results, financials, supporters, events and special guests throughout the last year in our 2017-2018…
Salesforce.org, the philanthropic arm of the Salesforce platform, announced a $500,000 grant to Larkin Street Youth Services at their annual Dreamforce event in downtown San Francisco in September. We’re grateful for this new partnership with Salesforce, which also includes a pledge to volunteer time and skills to Larkin Street. Salesforce’s commitment to ending homelessness was…
Larkin Street Youth Services is proud to be an official non-profit of Dreamforce ’18, the largest technology conference in the world. Hosted by Salesforce, the cloud computing company, Dreamforce will run September 25 through 28 and sprawl over several blocks in Downtown SF offering breakout sessions, demos, networking and special events. We’re so grateful to be…
Below is a letter we received from a Larkin Street alum who wanted to share how our programs impacted their life. Read on: Dear Friends at Larkin Street Youth Services, I was a drop in client from 1991 to 1994 and then a client at the clinic from 1994 to 1997, when I turned 20.…
Young people dazzled the crowd at our Art Program’s annual Performing Arts Night at Kelly Cullen Community as they showcased their talents ranging from dance, music, theater and poetry. Every performance was a testament of their resiliency, courage, creativity and we couldn’t be prouder. We would like to acknowledge the following young people for putting…
In the midst of America’s ongoing border crisis, Larkin Street’s Director of Public Funding, Mary Kate Bacalao, shares her opinion on how family separation will lead to more homelessness. Thousands of children in detention centers today are at grave risk of an opposite and equally abhorrent fate as young adults: abandonment to the streets, where they…
Recently, we held a focus group inviting 15 volunteers from Twitter to talk about how to better engage the community with our work. We started the day with a tour of our space and then broke into small groups to dive into messaging and communications channels for reaching young professionals. This was a valuable opportunity…
About 49 percent of homeless young people in San Francisco identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning. Young people who identify as LGBTQ are 120% more likely to experience homelessness than non-LGBTQ youth. While many factors contribute to LGBTQ youth homelessness, identity-based family rejection is the most commonly cited reason. In celebration of…
Dear Friends, Thank you, as always, for your ongoing support of Larkin Street Youth Services. Together, we’ve reached a critical time in the work to end youth homelessness. We face huge challenges – devastating gun violence, federal policy changes that negatively impact those we serve, and the sheer number of young people still on the…
The last several months have brought several important new investments in services for young people experiencing homelessness from our partners in the public sphere. First, Larkin Street has endorsed the “Housing for All” ballot measure, which will provide critical funding for housing and prevention for San Franciscans experiencing or at-risk of homelessness through a 1.7%…
This April, we’re sending a huge thank you to all of Larkin Street’s corporate partners. Employees from numerous Bay Area companies were instrumental in helping us achieve so much in the last year by volunteering their expertise to address operational needs such as IT, communications, and HR. Our partnership with Google is an exemplary model…
We would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to everyone who joined us at the 16th Annual Paving the Way Gala! Every year is always better than the last and we owe all of you for that. Senator Scott Wiener and Assemblymember Phil Ting, who have both been in the forefront of the fight to end…