Adventure SF -- Group Volunteering Tour of Folsom Street Fair

History walk • Group volunteering • Explore one of San Francisco's most unconventional festivals

If you didn't know what "Folsom Street Fair" is, do a google.

We think a history walk and then group volunteering tour, acting as part of the festival safety monitor team, is a right way to crack this famous street fair in SF.

You may have heard of SF's famous Folsom Street Fair, or you may have wanted to check it out one day but never made it. Here is a chance to do so, with a group, with an official role in the festival.

Folsom Street Fair is a unique SF culture adventure experience, as weird as SF can get. It is the world's largest leather and kink event, having 250k to half a million visitors every year. Fairly dense in one day. Definitely 18+ adult theme. Started in the 1980s, it has long been a fixture in SF cultural landscape.
https://www.folsomstreet.org/
https://www.sfheritage.org/community/the-folsom-street-fair/

Its volunteer organizer is turnout.org, which we have cooperated in the Pride parade before. So we will do a history tour of the festival, then attend the festival as volunteers.

The recommended shifts are:
Safety Team Support 2-5pm
There are also other shifts, like volunteer sign in, floaters, hospitality etc., you can check them out and sign up at below. Yes, you must sign up there to attend the group volunteering.
https://turnoutinc.volunteerlocal.com/volunteer/?id=90549

The role of safety team support is to walk the festival ground in pairs or groups, under the instruction of the safety team. So you get this official role to wander the ground, watch all the actions, while doing good, as part of the festival organizing body.

We think group volunteering after a history tour is the right way to crack this niche festival of SF. Of course the volunteering part is optional, you are also free to attend it as simply spectators.

## The day
12:00 — Sightglass Coffee, 270 7th St. Coffee, introductions. Two floors, plenty of room, just outside the closure.
12:30 — Step off.
12:45 — Ringold Alley. One block south of Folsom, between 8th and 9th. It's a registered historical landmark and a public memorial to the leather community — bronze bootprints and granite markers set into the pavement, names of people who built this neighborhood. Almost nobody walking to the fair knows it's there. We're stopping here first on purpose: it makes today a history instead of a spectacle.
1:00 — West along Harrison. One block parallel to the fair. You'll hear it for fifteen minutes before you see it. This is the stretch where our Friend Circle happens, so you go into your shift knowing the people you're working beside.
1:15 — Eagle Plaza, 398 12th St. The public plaza built for the leather community next to the SF Eagle, with bronze stars set into the walkway and the leather pride flag overhead. Last stop.
1:25 — Volunteer HQ. Check in, badge, coat check, grab something from the hospitality tent. They ask Folsom volunteers to arrive early because you have to cross the fair to get there.
2:00 — Shift starts.
~5:30/6:00 — Shift ends. Back to HQ, food, and we regroup there.
6:30pm Optional group coffee/dinner

Folsom Street is a nonprofit that has given away more than $7 million to community organizations since 1984, almost entirely on the backs of volunteers. That's the machine we're spending an afternoon inside of.

See you at Sightglass.

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