Good morning, im your host dr. Brenda wade. In 2049, the Mary Elizabeth ann will celebrate 100 years of providing safe housing and Supportive Services in towomen in need. The founder, lizzie slider glide also build glide memorial methodist church. Over the years, they have helped thousands of women rebuild their lives. Joining us is the executive director, deon roberts. Good morning, deon. Good morning. And thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. 100 years . 100 years in 2014. Yes. I am a native san franciscan and never knew about Mary Elizabeths end . Neitherdy. And i am also a native plannan. One of the bestkept secrets. Who was lizzie slider glide . Lizzie slider glides of a widow by 1996. Oh. And she was a widow. She had a healthy husband in the cattle business and coming to San Francisco and spoke to women in the city and asked the question if you could have whatever you wanted or what do you think women in San Francisco need. Uhhuh. And this is 1949 now, and they coming to San Francisco and have no place. And she decided to erect the building and that is what she did. And we have been operating out of that building for 100 years. And survived all kinds of devastation. Yes, it did. And who is your typical client . They all women, first of all, the only Nonprofit Organization in San Francisco that provides the comprehensive services to women only. Uh. It would be a single adult, unaccompanied woman who is formerly homeless and low income. Lowincome. Uh. And spanishad nights special dismissed in most cases, survivors of domestic violence. That is a triple downand out 55 early, special needs, and domestic violence. Right. And i forgot homeless. That is four. Uhhuh. A typical story might be a situation where a woman was living on the streets and she mean abused and is staying in the shelter. Uhhuh. And they referred to them and find housing and finally, finally they can be stabilized and sometimes getting into stable housing. Yeah. The first thing that sets them on a path to doing other things. You cant get your life together if you dont have some place to relax and say i can put my head down. Im safe. Exactly. And that is how it is for a lot of women coming there and that is what they need. A safe place to be and they might go back to school, reunite with family members and may leave the city hall together, you know. Uhhuh. And for many, its a step in the direction. Is there an average age of the women coming to you . Our current demographics, we have our age range from 22 to 79 and. Wow. We have two buildings, the historic building, 92 units and we have another building nearby which is 57. A total of 157. That is a lost units. The population is women anywhere from 22 to 79. And that is an extreme ageing difference. It is. Tell us about the success of one of the women . Interesting you should ask. We were featured in january in the San Francisco examiner, and it told the story of a woman who was coming out of a violent situation. Uhhuh. Lost her job and she found housing at Mary Elizabeth end and its hard to know how women can turn their lives around in that situation and she got her stable housing there and she went on to get some training and has a job. Shes working. Shes happy. That is great. Shes working, has a job and does she have a home of her own new . She still stays there. That is the thing, a lot of women coming out of the history of homelessness or domestic violence, they have faced so many barriers. Yes. And sometimes the wage earning capacity is very limited. On top of it, theyre trauma victims. Exactly. And that is the same as any veteran coming back from the war. Once the brain is impacted by trauma, its very hard to overcome the apzyety and function and to hold a job is something mirak las. And to many tape your house, we are affordable housing. Yeah. And for women with low income, you know, or theyre homeless and what have you. Once they do come to our housing, the facility and get housed, often times this is where theyre going to be and who have Great Stories of those moving on. Know that. I know an organization like yours, beings Community Service like this has to have funding. You have special events coming up for funding. We do a couple of different things. We do a Great Partnership with the city and county of San Francisco. Great. And a Great Partnership with the department of the status of women on the San Francisco city and county. Yes. And so they helping you with funding and operating cold fronts. Uhhuh. And we can pass the rates to residents. In addition to that, we do some other fun things to raise the awareness. Uh. And you have something coming up . We do. October 16th is our speakers series. Oh,. And that is the soul purpose of that is no to get people to understand it. Yes. And our guest speaker is dr. Bill. She has a fascinating story and wrote a book. Right. Warrior stone crisis. Shes going to be our speaker october 16th at noon at the Metropolitan Club in San Francisco at 6 40. 640. That a is that a fund raiser . Its not meant to be. Too bad. You can use the funds. We will always accept donation. I ask this question at the end of an interview for an organization like yours. How can we help. Those of us who are women and care beam about women watching what request can we do to what can we do to help . We have volunteer opportunities, events coming up. Uh. And you can go online. Ill tell but that and if you want to make an online donation or join the fun on october 16th to benefit the Mary Elizabeth wednesday october 16th, and on 640 sutter street, call to get tickets at 4154334595. Or log on to www. Meann. Org. Make the donation even if you cant get to the cause. Bless you and all the women at Mary Elizabeth. Thank you. All right, everyone. You stay there. We have more for you. ,,,,,. Welcome back. The museum of the african or moad as we like to call it around here, celebrating eight years of showcasing history, art, and culture that resulted from the disbursal of African People throughout the world on october 12th. Moad will honor actress Alfre Woodard, danny glover, and San Francisco ceo dr. Sandra hernandez. To give us the latest on their ongoing activities is activist and author debra santana. Debra is currently the interim director of moad. Welcome, deborah debra. Gad to you have here. Thank you. Moad existed for eight years. It has and longer, really. It took many years to create the beautiful museum. And its beautiful. Yes. And its unique. I travel around the country and people is are like hows moad . Yeah. And tell us about that now . Eight years in. What is it like . What is the museum presenting . Right now, we have a fabulous exhibition with jd chokerees art work, the nigerian photographer. Wow. And hes known the world over. This particular exhibition is sartoreal moment. Its dressing, hair, and his beautiful black and White Photography from the 60s. Sounds lovely. Yes, and we have 11 beautiful prints gifted to moad from gordon parks before he passed away. Uhhuh. Were in photographer mode while. Amazing exhibitions this year, including the beginning of the year, we had the kenzy collection, which is beautiful allafricanamerican art history and culture that has been collected by bernard and shirley kinzy. Moad is so unique. Its a jewel of a museum. Uhhuh. Andy know lots of other children. Yeah. And midwest people dont realize that its a museum but a resource in the community. Yes. And we have a very, very strong, robust Public Program and that showcased the physicians and artists. We have scholarly voices where doctors and educators come in and speak to the community. We have Education Programs for youth, tours given to school children. We have collaborative programs that happen with children coming in. We have free days that you come in and do art, make art and become a part of the museum. Great. And for children, the hands on is so important. Yes. Ever and child has creative genius. Uh. And needs a place to let that awaken. Yes. And that is wonderful. Every year, i look forward to the moad annual guyla. Yes. This year it sounds special. This year is spectacular. Were happy to have danny glover honored as the patron of culture and. The patron of culture. Yes. And magnificent social activist. Yes. And life changer for many. And we have Alfree Woodard being Alfre Woodard being honored in the performing art. Oh. And shes, of course, a jowl of a person herself. Yes, she is. Amazing activist and actor and were honoring dr. Sandra hernandez with the legacy of philanthropy and, of course, she is from the San Francisco foundation. Exactly. And a brilliant woman. Yes. Yes. Finally, were honoring henny see bs the corporate. They support many causes. Yes. And fire side, chats, all sorts of things to bring conversations and more community awareness. And that is the sign of a great corporation. I know our own pam is the emcee this year. Our mistress of ceremonies, were grateful. I remember pam and i talking year years ago. And she was working in boston and said to me, i would love to work in San Francisco. Uhhuh. And i said, pam, write that down. Write it in a letter to god and i got a call i got the job for San Francisco . She owes me her job. Yes. And all of you are dynamic. What is your role . You are the acting director. I congratulate you on that. Thank you. And at the end of may, i came in. They asked me to step in as interim executive director, and so i stepped in around midmy and there were a lot of tasks to take on and kind of write the ship in a certain way. Its been an amazing experience. I have a transition team, which is the board chair wade rose and Eric Mcdonough and mark spencer and with them, i have been leading this organization. Its been such a gift. You have a vision . For the museum as you move forward . Transitioning is one thing. And you must have your own vision. In reality, i committed to do this through the end of august. Were actively searching for a new executive director and we keep the same vision, but we wanted to be more creatively dynamic, and we want to mix that culture and history of the diaspara with technology. We need to move forward in the Technology Aspect of the diaspara at the museum. I hope the new executive director will bring a vig. We had an amazing workshop with dr. Lonnie bunch. That is beautiful. I will stop you there. Yeah. I want to remind people that you must get to the gala. Its fun and energizing. All of the people are being honored. For more information about moad and their Upcoming Fund raiser, visit the website at moadsf. Org and get your tickets to the gala, saturday, october 12th at 6 00 p. M. At the palace hotel on montgomery street. Stay there. We have Something Special coming. Thank you, debra santana. ,,,. Americas first allafrican american theatre is making a comeback. Its its artistic director Steven Anthony jones joins us this morning to tell us how he plans to make the remaking of midmarket area in San Francisco into a major theatre arts district. Welcome back, steven. And thank you. A pleasure to have you. Great to be here. And so much has happened. Yes. This is our 32nd year. 32nd year. Founded by Stanley Williams and quinton easter. And existed in San Francisco almost exclusively as a San Franciscobased theatrical organization. Amazing. And were one of the longest producing africanamerican theatres in the country and. That is amazing. I didnt know that. Yes. Yes. And since i have become artistic director last year. Right. I started a program called bringing the art to the audience. Bringing the art to the audience. And wonderful. I wanted to reach out to the audience members all over the bay area and our support comes from the east bay in San Francisco. Right. And how does the audience get involved with that . What we is have done is we started with moad. Uhhuh. And we partnered with the african art and culture center. Right. And have been pushing an idea, producing theatre in unexpected places and we parted with the joyce gordon art gallery. Fabulous. And we have video of a performance. Lets look at that. Uhhuh. And this is going to be that. Which play is it . And this is right. And this is the production that came at the end of my first season at the helm of the theatre and was in our old home, the home of the San Francisco theatre. This is great. That is my good friend robert gossett. Uhhuh. Terrific. As were moving forward, i know that you have all sorts of wonderful plans and the audience, youre saying, with the partnerships of all of the different organizations, the audience can go buy tickets. How does that work . These events, bringing the art to the audience is a gift that the theatre gives to bay area audiences. Last year, we produced 12 readings of basically new plays that were under consideration for production. Uhhuh. We went around to the venues of our barns, so we travelled to our partners. We travelled to richmond. Okay. We travelled to oakland and to vir yaws locations in San Francisco. One of the biggest partnerships is the american conserveitory theater and utilizing their costume shop space. And let me see if i got this right. What happens is Lorraine Hansbury travels to the other organizations, puts on a life reading and audience members can come and enjoy it. For free. Yes. For free. Oh, oh, wait, everybody. That is spilled free. You want to get there. We have more of that ahead. Yes, we have. That is wonderful. We had a wonderful response last year. We applied for a grant to the California Arts Council and they are funding the program this year. They gave us more money than we asked for. Wonderful. We added new partnerships. The Yerba Buena Center for the arts, the eastside Cultural Alliance are two of our partners, brava, the womens theatre in San Francisco. What we do is we take a reading using our professional actors and we set up and we do this reading, usually on saturday afternoons. Anyone who is interested and the Audience Response has been amazing. I love it. What are some of the readings people will hear in will coming season . We hear in the coming season . Were looking at workshopping the new play by aaron carter called start fair. What is the story . Start fair is a fascinating new play about what happens to two former slaves on the first day of the e manslaughterination manslaughterination emancipat ion as they begin walking through the south trying to figure out how theyre going to put the rest of their lives together. That is an interesting premise. I want to revive two of lor ape hansburys works that havent really been examined. I want to look at the boostings window and. What is the story of the sign and sidney boostings window . I like the title already. The sign and boostings window is the other play of hers on broadway. It was on broadway when she died. Uh. And that is a story about Political Action and choices that individuals make as the political machine that we live under. Uh. And were currently living under with the closing of the government, grinds on and does the things that it does. Okay. And its how they affect the lives of individual people and the choices. That is timely. Given what is going on now. Tell us about the midmaking of the market straight area. Yes. And the theatre district. The project centers around an address on market street. Huh,. 950 market. Were not the only theatre involved. A. C. T. Is involved, the major generalec is involveed and cutting fire. Our offices and our new residents residence would be there at 950 market. Its a fantastic moject and projected to be four theatres in that space. Two 99 seat black boxes and two 199 seat spaces. So this will be the show it theater district. Yes. And well have our own sort of broadway happening here. Yes. Yesterday, the unveiling of the strand occurred with a. C. T. And that is a space. Where is the strand . That is between seventh and 8th on market. So. 950 is closer to fifth and the other end of the project would be the strand and both spaces are utilized by communitybased organization. Beautiful. And like the theater. Hows it funded . That is a series of partnerships. The city is behind the project. There is private investment and the San Francisco foundation. Uh. And also a major player. Wonderful. And when can we look forward to 950 market open something. I am told 2018. Okay, its ahead of us. We have lorraine hensbury bringing art to the audience, live readings and more, im sure. What we call the passport seer. Thank you so much for coming to tell us what is happening with lorraine hensbury theatre. For more information about the lorraine hensbury theatres progress and upcoming shows and tickets, please call 415474 8800 or visit the lorraine hensbury website at www. Hlft. Org. Well if you leave you with scenes from this aint no mouse music showing this week in this years mill valley film festival. Im dr. Brenda wade. Blessings, everybody. Firstofakind program. Her ad libs imagine this, get out of prison and get a check for rent. The