Wow. It seems like it was just yesterday that we were at the park kicking off our first annual 72 Degrees: Dolores Park Summer Warm-up event.

Alas, it was almost two weeks ago. So, how did it go? Great! Check out photos from the event. We had a wonderful time!

We collected over 240 signatures for our petition to get porta-potties added to the park on summer weekends and we got over 150 for bike racks. We’ll be posting updates on both over the next few weeks. If you haven’t done so already, please sign our porta-potties petition.

D.A. from BRC Playa Restoration Team

We’d like to offer up a big giant THANK YOU to all of our sponsors, partners and to you – fabulous park patrons. D.A. from Black Rock City Playa Restoration and his team came out and led 16 volunteers in a line sweep clean up of Dolores Park. We picked up about 48 pounds (yep!) of trash – bottle caps, cigarette butts, bottles, paper, orange peels, newspapers, beer boxes, notepads…. That’s a lot of MOOP for just 75 minutes of clean up. While it felt good to be so productive, it was just so damn depressing that people leave so much MOOP behind.

Dolores Park Cafe provided breakfast for volunteers.

Our beloved Dolores Park Cafe provided delicious scones, muffins, pastries and much needed coffee and Dolores Park Dogs also did a clean up that morning and the individual that picked up the most won a pet gift basket from Jeffrey’s Natural Pet Foods. Thank you!

The Friends of Dolores Park Playground came out and did some serious face painting, offered kiddos free balloons and for the adults, the model of the new playground. bodyFi did their tick-tack-toe and hopscotch agility competition and gave away 5 bootcamp classes to the winners.

Estrellita's Snacks (Maria del Carmen Flores)

La Cocina food vendors Coconut and Spice, Los Cilantros, Estrellita’s Snacks, and Zella’s Soulful Kitchen set upand offered park patrons yummy street food. Bi-Rite Market donated 100 cookies to us that we sold to raise money. I’m not sure who ate more cookies that day – me or everyone else in the park. Those chewy toffee cookies are to die for.

We had special appearances from new Dolores Park renovation project manager Jake Gilchrist who answered many questions from community members about the park’s renovation. Meredith Thomas from Neighborhood Parks Council stopped by to offer some moral support. Rebecca Prozan, and Karen and Ed from The San Francisco Mime Troupe also came out to say hello.

We had drawings for park prizes! We gave away gift certificates to some of your favorite haunts: Dolores Park Cafe, Puerto Alegre, Due Drop In, Delfina, Edgewise Arts and bodyFi, and Bianchi Fitness.

The Sisters bless the park

But I think my favorite part of the day was when Sister Tammy fae Bakkersfield of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and a few of her fellow sisters offered up a blessing of the park and the summer and preached to park goers about being “responsibly irresponsible” in the park.

Thanks to all the wonderful volunteers that helped us clean up, set up, run the event and clean up yet again, and to our sponsors: Bi-Rite Market, Rhea’s Market & Deli, Realtor Naomi Lempert Lopez, Bianchi Fitness, bodyFi, Dolores Park Cafe, Puerto Alegre, Due Drop In, Delfina, Edgewise Arts, Jeffrey’s Natural Pet Foods, and Anthony Lindsey, who was our event photographer.