Community Leaders

Through this ongoing program, originally launched in 2022, community leaders with deep connections to the neighborhoods and communities where they live or work offer feedback on how the Presidio can be relevant and responsive to community needs. Community Experts provided valuable input on the Presidio Tunnel Tops opening season and offered key insights on the award-winning marketing campaigns Free to Be and Bring Your Own.

Ann Berry
Ann Berry started working with the city in her Bernal Heights neighborhood to underground all the electricity on the hill. She worked with the Rafiki Coalition on their Health and Environmental Justice committee to clean up and label toxic areas in the Bayview. She also worked with the city health department to bring fresh food and Fresh & Easy stores to San Francisco. She was voted into the CSL and started going to the state capital working to get bills passed to help seniors, all while on the board for the Network for Elders.

Adama Bryant
Adama Bryant is a San Francisco native and has raised her family in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the founding director at Weekend-Adventures, a fiscally sponsored program of the Social Good Fund. Her passions include being outdoors with the trees and creating space for kids to feel and be safe and enjoy their childhood.

Maria Tomasa Bulox
Tomasa is a Maya K’iche’ woman, born in Guatemala. She has lived in San Francisco since 2008. She works for the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN SF) as the Health Promotion Program Manager, leading a team of promotoras (Community Health Workers) that provides health education targeting the Latinx immigrant community. Healthy eating, oral health, and physical activity are some areas the program addresses to promote a healthy lifestyle.

Jessica Campos (she/her)
Born and raised in Daly City/San Francisco, Jessica Campos is the Community Engagement lead for the SF Office of Racial Equity (ORE) through the Human Rights Commission. She connects ORE’s work in multi-racial, multilingual communities to eliminate racial disparities in employment, housing, criminal justice, economic advancement, health, transit, education, and homelessness. Previously, she was the manager of a Head Start/Early Head Start program in District 10. Her passion for change guides her to advocate in different levels of community, from being a mentor with City of Dreams to a board member of Early Care Educators San Francisco.

Aurora Cortes (she/her)
Aurora Cortes was born and raised in Santa Ana. She moved to Northern California, where she received her bachelor’s degree in Environmental Horticulture and Urban Forestry from U.C. Davis. As the SF Bay Area Regional Coordinator with Latino Outdoors, Aurora organizes community-based programs and seeks partnerships and collaboration opportunities for the community to come together to celebrate language, traditions, and culture in the outdoors.

Jarae Clark
Jarae Clark, a Sacramento native, is the Executive Director for City of Dreams where she is responsible for delivering quality mentorship to youth in the Bayview community. Growing up in a low-income community, she graduated with a master’s degree in social work to work in community organizing, planning, and nonprofit administration. Jarae started working with youth and families in the Bayview in 2015.

Rhonda Haley (she/her)
Rhonda was born in Oakland and raised in Berkeley. She is the Senior Resident Services Coordinator for the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation. She works at Bayview Commons serving a 30-unit building and with RAD residents in Hunters Point East/West, Bernal Dwellings, Hayes Valley, and the Geraldine Johnson Senior Housing Building. She serves low-income residents, families, seniors, and residents with HIV/AIDS, assisting them with back rent, food, diapers, bills, furniture, case management, and other resources.

Maurice Harper, Jr. (he/him)
Maurice Harper was born in Berkeley and served as an educator for most of his career. For more than 40 years, he took on roles including teacher, counselor, coach, activities director, campus minister, administrator, and dean. He is currently involved in many youth-serving organizations in San Francisco and Oakland, including the Mindful School’s Mindful Teacher Certification Program Class of 2022.

Rebecca Jackson (she/her)
Rebecca Jackson is CJCJ’s Director of Cameo House. She oversees and leads all Cameo House programming, operations, and services. She is a powerful advocate for formerly-incarcerated women and their children in San Francisco who are experiencing homelessness and looking for the opportunity to change their lives. Her personal experiences with domestic violence, racism, addiction, and incarceration inform her work and fuel her desire to be a positive role model of change. Rebecca’s extends her advocacy and activism to women’s rights and issues in SF and is a voice and member of several coalitions and work groups including being the co-chair of the Women’s Housing Coalition, the Women’s Working Group, a member of the Re-entry Council for Women’s first subcommittee, and a Hamilton Families board member. She is also the proud sole proprietor of her own small business.

Carolyn Sideco (she/siya)
Since her family’s migration to Turtle Island in 1970. Carolyn enjoys affinity with Sama Sama Family Cooperative, and she is board president of the Filipino-American Development Foundation (FADF). A trained educator and athletic administrator, she founded Coaching Kapwa Sports Consultants. As a certified Radical Nature Change Agent, Carolyn facilitates nature healing hikes and guided group meditations for individuals and families.

Sharaya Souza (she/her)
Sharaya Souza (Taos Pueblo, Ute, Kiowa) is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the American Indian Cultural District, dedicated to recognizing, honoring, and celebrating American Indian legacy, culture, people, and contributions. She is an ambassador for promoting equitable resource distribution to American Indian communities, increasing Native visibility and political representation, and protecting and preserving American Indian cultural resources in the Bay Area. She serves on San Francisco Heritage, Aquatic Park Pier Planning Committee, and the Human Rights Commission Roundtable. She has previously served on the Environmental Justice Working Group, SFAC Monuments Memorials Advisory Committee, Climate Council, Housing Policy Committee, and the HRC Racial Equity in the Arts Working Group.

Maxine Tatmon-Gilkerson (she/her)
Maxine is the Cultural and Special Events Coordinator at Rafiki Coalition for Health and Wellness located in the Bayview. Rafiki’s mission is to reduce health disparities and inequities in S.F.’s Black and other marginalized communities. Maxine is a long-time activist who loves being in and exploring nature. She used to take young adults backpacking in her spare time. She currently really enjoys hiking with community members on Rafiki outings.

Stephanie Welch
East Bay Area native Stephany Welch lives in Oakland. She is passionate about guiding youth to find their voice, gain opportunities, find resources, plan ahead, and cultivate skills. She previously worked as the CYC Bayview Youth Advocates (BYA) Program Coordinator, a multicultural leadership program for high school students in San Francisco District 10. As the student recruitment and outreach coordinator for Life Learning Academy she helps high schoolers find their way through the door to a unique education model that elevates not only their academics but also their workforce development skills. In 2017, she published a nonfiction book, a collection of 103 stories that she hopes readers will find relatable and comforting.

The Presidio Activator Council was created in 2021 as a council of community leaders to infuse the new Presidio Tunnel Tops with the values of inclusion, access, respect, diversity, education, reciprocity, and equity. The work of this group informed decisions, activities, and processes prior to and after opening day to ensure the new space was welcoming, relevant, accessible, vibrant, equitable, and a safe place for all communities — particularly people of color, Indigenous people, people with disabilities, LGBTQIA+, immigrants, veterans, formerly incarcerated and/or people who experience homelessness, or poverty. Their work over two years informed the vision, program landscape, and processes for how the park welcomes communities.

The council was funded through Presidio Tunnel Tops initiative funds and was managed by the Partnership for the Presidio.

Members

• Sharaya Souza, Founder & Executive Director, American Indian Cultural District
• Maurice Harper, minister and retired teacher and principal
• Mark Smith, Veterans’ Administration, WARIOR Program, Occupational Therapist
• Khafre Jay, Founder and Executive Director, Hip Hop for the Future
• Maya Rogers, San Francisco Parks Alliance, Parks 94124
• Favianna Rodriguez, Center for Cultural Power
• Metzi Henriquez, M.A., MFTI, San Francisco Department of Public Health, Fogo Na Roupa, Co-director
• Mory Chhom, MPH, Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, Program Director of Youth and Family Services
• Jessica Campos, San Francisco Human Rights Commission, SF Office of Racial Equity: Stand Together SF
• Lucas Tobin, San Francisco Recreation and Parks, Supervisor for Therapeutic and Recreation & Inclusion Services, and ADA Coordinator for Programmatic Access