Jamestown Work Receives Community Honors For Continued Excellence

It’s been a busy beginning to the school year for all of us at Jamestown. Between continuing in-person learning at our Beacon Center School sites and launching some exciting initiatives, we’ve been working hard to ensure we are meeting the needs of our Mission District youth and community. With so much going on, we wanted to take a moment to celebrate our programs staff being recognized by pivotal city leaders and institutions. 

Recently, on top of clinching the National League West Division (take that Dodgers!), the San Francisco Giants organization honored our Chavez Elementary Program Manager Diana Diaz, for the latest installment of their City Connect series, spotlighting young people making a difference in their communities. Diaz has been a key member of our Chavez team, who began as an art instructor and is now serving in a key leadership role. Her professional and personal growth is a shining example of how Jamestown invests in developing leadership from within.

Be sure to learn more about Diana’s journey on the Giants City Connect blog. You can also support her work directly by purchasing art from her website!

While Diaz and her family were lighting up the jumbotron at Oracle Park, our Loco Bloco artivists were being honored at the opening of the San Francisco Symphony’s 2021-2022 performance season. Loco Bloco was selected as this year’s recipient of the Ellen Magnin Newman Award, which celebrates outstanding community-based arts organizations who strengthen the Bay Area’s cultural fabric, serves vulnerable families and individuals, and creates a more just and equitable society for everyone who lives here.

Since our merger back in 2018, Jamestown has been proud to help carry on the legacy of Loco Bloco and support their work creating a space for Afro-Latino artistic traditions to continue thriving within our community. Be sure to join the Jamestown Loco Bloco familia as well as other local artivists for our annual ReclaMisión Dia de Muertos community celebration, November 2nd at our Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Beacon Center or November 7th at Hummingbird Farms in the Excelsior District. Come see why Loco Bloco has become such an honored cultural fixture within the San Francisco arts community!

Presenting Loco Bloco's Carnaval 2020 Theme: From Roots to Reincarnation

Through our artistic expression, we will create:

An embodiment of the ancestral traditions & wisdom living in the land & carried in our spirit

An act of community healing from our ancestral trauma as our scars evolve into adornments of empowerment
A reclaiming of our strength, power & voice as we transform our vision for our collective future

Join us March 7th at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 School for our Spring Resource and Carnaval Registration Fair 11am - 2pm. If you want to get involved before this, join us every Monday at Brava Theater for our Free Community Drum and Dance Classes 5 - 6:15pm. Stay updated on all things Loco Bloco by following on Facebook and Instagram.

Loco Bloco Presents - Back Of The Bus: A 14-Mission Love Story

Loco Bloco is looking forward to a wonderful ride this year after taking home the First Place Overall prize in 2018’s Carnaval San Francisco -- Loco Bloco and The Jamestown Community Center are proud to announce our 2019 theme, BACK OF THE BUS: A 14-Mission Love Story.

We’re taking a trip down memory lane, back to the early Mission days and that one ride we always could depend on: the 14-Mission bus. Back to the days of bumping beats on a ghetto blaster and throwing a freestyle way in the back, we'll bring together the years of memories through hip hop, drumming and familiar recorded samples that are sure to evoke a sense of nostalgia.

This theme, selected by our Youth Artivists, celebrates the youth, families and laborers whose method of migration through the City is the 14-Mission bus. We honor their perseverance to maintain a tight grip and keep their feet firmly balanced as they roll through a city rapidly changing around them. The back of the bus has formed communities, birthed movements and inspired music and art. It has become a symbol for resistance and solidarity.

As an organization, we are excited to bring this time capsule to life with our amazing community of families and students from our after school program. Every year our contingent team of families, artivists and community members come together to create new memories as we celebrate past ones made in the Back Of The Bus. Please join us!

*Rehearsals for our Main Bateria & Dance sections begin Monday Jan 7, 5pm-6:15pm at Brava Theater - For Ages 11-24
*Registration for our Full Contingent (ages 3-24 & families) begins Sat., March 23 at our Orientation & Resource Fair at James Lick Middle School

Please spread the word & join us in getting down in the streets of La Misión. Join the contingent and come to our rehearsals!
Artwork by the Mission’s own @chrystianguillermo 

Loco Bloco Rises to Take First Place Overall Prize in Carnaval SF 2018

San Francisco, CA July 30, 2018 - For over 40 years, San Francisco Carnaval has celebrated the rich traditions of Caribbean and Latin cultures in the Bay Area. Almost 100 contingents participate in the parade competition and Loco Bloco is proud to announce its 2018 First Place Overall Prize.

Having competed in Carnaval for the past 24 years, Loco Bloco leadership felt confident entering the contingent in the Contemporary World/Fusion category, as opposed to the youth division. Entering in an adult category allowed both staff and students to elevate as artists and educators.

“Being in that category challenges us more as artists. The youth categories would be a little less competitive, the standards wouldn’t be as high artistically,” said Arts Programs Manager Audrey Ingalls. “When we’re putting ourselves in a category of competing with actual adult groups, our standards have to be at a higher level. So that naturally pushes us from the gate to have our youth start at a higher level of artistry.”

The theme for this year, “Vuela Sin Parar,” was submitted by community parent Lisa Mestayer and selected by Loco Bloco students. Inspired by the legend of the young Yoruba goddess Oshun, who transformed from a peacock to a vulture in order to save the world, Loco Bloco leadership felt the story resonated with the organization’s mission and purpose.

“This story of Oshun is about youth leadership and transformation through love,” said Deputy Director of Arts and Community Annie Jupiter-Jones. “That’s what Loco Bloco is all about, we use arts to right wrongs and overcome inequalities and discrimination. Art is about love, meeting negativity with positivity, transforming something of beauty into something of power.”

The 275 person contingent, comprised of stilt walkers, percussionists, dancers and parents was certainly a powerful sight to behold. With the rising gentrification and displacement of Mission community members, having such a strong presence at Carnaval in itself, felt like a form of resistance.

“We’ve seen our community change so much, our families, our staff be displaced; but it has reaffirmed and strengthened what we do, because we are positioned to be the last remaining connection these folks have to the traditions where their families have lived for generations,” said Jupiter-Jones. “Carnaval weekend is for folks to come back and reclaim the streets as ours. It’s something you can really feel, it’s a powerful political statement to see 200 plus families taking over 24th and Mission. It’s the one time of year you get to feel like it’s the Mission of old.”

About Loco Bloco: Loco Bloco and The Jamestown Community Center merged on July 1st, 2018. Both youth development organizations have long established track records of providing enriching, high quality programming to youth to promote their healthy transition into adulthood. The organizations chose to merge because of their shared commitment to youth development, their love for the Mission community, and their experience in developing leadership among low income youth and families.

For More Information: http://www.locobloco.org/