BAWCC’s Partnerships

Partnerships have been a very important part of Bay Area Women’s and Children’s Center’s approach since our early years in the 1980s. Working in partnership with institutions, other organizations, universities, and city departments has enabled us to expand our work far beyond the scope of what we would have been able to accomplish as a single organization!  Some of our current partnership programs include:

UCSF’s Pediatric Dentistry Division – Soon after the school opened, BAWCC and UCSF created the Pediatric Dentistry Clinic located right in the lower level at Tenderloin Community School.  Working closely together since that time, hundreds of Tenderloin and other low-income children have received full dental care.  These services have been free of charge to the families since 2002 when our partnership began.

Tenderloin Community School – BAWCC’s most far-reaching partnership is with this 350-student public school that BAWCC led the effort to get built and opened in 1998.  BAWCC provides many of the on-site services and programs at the school, including: technology program, library program- Authors and Illustrators Day with SFUSD, dental clinic (above), learning garden, daily phys ed program, 14 weekly after-school clubs on site each year, & many others.  For more information on these programs, please see the Community Schools tab.

The Learning Garden – As Bay Area Women’s and Children’s Center was working with the architects on the school’s design, Tenderloin families came to us and asked if a garden could be built into the school building. Many of these parents had come from countries where they grew much of their own food, and they wanted their children to learn about this.  Thanks to many donated hours by the school’s architects, the answer was a resounding “Yes!” Staffed by BAWCC’s Garden Coordinator, the Learning Garden is a gorgeous, living space that provides a hands-on experience of how things grow and what plants need to thrive.  BAWCC staff works closely with the classroom teachers to connect lessons in this program with what they are doing in their classes every day.

These are just a few of BAWCC’s many current partnership programs.  Others, and partnerships from past years, have included: Stanford University, UC Berkeley, EHDD Architecture, Twitter, The Urban School, Lick Wilmerding High School, City College St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic, IHDC, SF Rec & Park Dept. ACT, and many, many others.