MeWater Foundation & City of Dreams

Seamlessly aligned with our work to heal the underserved youth of San Francisco, MeWater Foundation is now one of the most cherished partnerships at City of Dreams.  Their keystone focus–mental health and mother nature–dwells alongside the City of Dreams goals for the inspirational and experiential healing of traumas.  For the last 8 years, MeWater Foundation has acted on the decades-long need for mental health professionals in communities like Bayview-Hunters Point and Visitation Valley.  Surfing, their specialty, introduces the youth to an activity not regularly accessible to children in low-income communities.  Our youth have directly benefited from MeWater’s impressive meshing of mental health education, environmental education, and the nurturing of self esteem through skill-based activities with others.  

This month, our youth went on three different camping trips with MeWater Foundation.  Locations included Samuel Peet Park in Lagunitas and Alice Eastwood Group in Mill Valley.  At events like these, our youth are constantly meeting new people, including kids who live in their area and adult mentors. Over the month of June, MeWater immersed the youth into nature, facilitating activities like: day and night hikes, surfing, mediation, exercise, cooking, and campfires.  The intention for these trips? To simply get out of the city and be with nature. 

Nature is one of the most invaluable experiences we can provide for our youth because of Bayview’s uniquely hazardous, equally isolated location.  Partnerships like MeWater expose the kids to a world outside of their immediate surroundings, a place where many of them have remained within until joining City of Dreams.   To simply “get out of the city” has resulted in meaningful revelations among the kids.  Kristine, our Program Manager who went on these camping trips with the kids, said that the overall mood among the kids was quietness.  Our youth expressed their appreciation for the stillness and serenity of nature–this, for youth who are accustomed to chaos and active play, is due to the careful work of MeWater. 

Aside from helping the kids build an appreciation for the environment, MeWater also contributes to their physical wellbeing by donating food and necessities to CoD families.  Over the last couple of years, MeWater volunteers have donated time, resources, mentorship, and friendship to City of Dreams youth, staff, and families.  

The photos alone are reminiscent of the work MeWater has achieved in connecting Bayview youth with nature not too far away from them.  You can see it in their faces. 

Photos by Eddie Donnellan, Founder of MeWater Foundation