“Because if I could afford shipping, I wouldn't have met Barbara.”
"Can I be on your board? I want to help you."
I'd like to introduce you to the person who said those words to me today— my new friend, one of the 2025 SF Good Neighbor Award Winners, and my first (!!!) Good Neighbor Lab Board Member, Barbara Wilson.
If you've talked to me recently, you know that I'm two months behind on delivering all the SF Good Neighbor Week goodie bags to our wonderful 2025 Good Neighbor Award winners. Out of 120 awardees, 40 have gotten their awards and I'm trying to deliver 60 door to door in the next week (the remaining 20 are pretty hard to get a hold of, so that might be a January project). My living room is full of gift bags, tissue paper, certificates, and hoodies (and my screen printing vendor is printing more hoodies this week, based on the latest batch of shirt sizes).
It's been an extremely inefficient process-- for many reasons, including that I couldn't afford shipping. But I'm not complaining. The beauty of inefficiency is that on the relationship v automation tradeoff, I find myself 100% on the side of relationships. Emailing with winners, arranging time to meet in person (or doing 2am dropoffs on their doorsteps...), and getting to know some of the most amazing San Franciscans quietly doing the work of strengthening their neighborhoods (thank you to the 200 residents who nominated their fantastic neighbors this year!)
Barbara is one of the winners who was nominated for her leadership on the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association , and if you know her you know that's just the tip of the iceberg of her community leadership in San Francisco. A driving force at the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center, a community activist who got Kevin Durant to install a beautiful basketball court at Hayes and Buchanan, a community leader who brought Trader Joe's to Fulton and Laguna, the list of Barbara's accomplishments goes on and on.
When I met Barbara at the Starbucks next to City Hall today, she was so excited and proud to put on her new hoodie and hold her award. As we got to know each other, she was curious to learn the story of SF Good Neighbor Week and eager to get involved. She asked to be on my board and even offered to help me deliver the rest of the hoodies :) I couldn't wait to get home before I followed up, so I called her from the car and said "Are you serious about joining my board? Because I can't stop smiling after meeting you." Barbara said "Girl, yes, and we haven't stopped talking about you either."
Lots of folks across the country have asked me how to bring Good Neighbor Week to their cities, and what I've learned from launching SF Good Neighbor Week. I have blog posts drafted on my top lessons learned, but I'm torn about what advice to give on how to run Good Neighbor Awards. Do I tell you to create a better nomination form than the one I used, that you should require folks to enter a mailing address, and then ship a small token of appreciation, and automate the whole thing, no human contact required? Or do I recommend an inefficient process that fills your living room with hoodies and your inbox with award winners telling you their shirt size and asking to grab a coffee?
Because if I could afford shipping, I wouldn't have met Barbara.
