{"id":30420,"date":"2025-10-30T16:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T16:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/30420\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T16:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T16:49:08","slug":"one-of-san-franciscos-most-troubled-neighborhoods-brings-a-pumpkin-patch-to-its-children-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/30420\/","title":{"rendered":"One of San Francisco\u2019s most troubled neighborhoods brings a pumpkin patch to its children"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By JANIE HAR<\/p>\n<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 Children from San Francisco\u2019s Tenderloin ate pizza, jumped in a bouncy house, got their faces painted and scooped up bags of candy Wednesday during the neighborhood\u2019s first ever pumpkin patch festival.<\/p>\n<p>The Tenderloin neighborhood near City Hall is among <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/crime-san-francisco-violent-crime-opioids-homelessness-9eddffa63f3e85759b520f76a6656333\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">San Francisco\u2019s most troubled<\/a>, rife with open drug use and homelessness. But it also has the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/san-francisco-tenderloin-drugs-children-7ae668d1050363170514ca057589ec1e\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">highest concentration of kids<\/a> in San Francisco, an estimated 3,000 children from largely immigrant families.<\/p>\n<p>The idea for the event came from parents served by nonprofit Compass Family Services. They suggested a field trip to a pumpkin patch for Halloween, said Erica Kisch, the group\u2019s CEO.<\/p>\n<p>Kisch scrambled to put together an outing. Then she thought, why not bring the pumpkin patch to the children?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe kids of the Tenderloin deserve something like this in their own neighborhood,\u201d said Kisch, who was dressed in a green dinosaur costume. \u201cThey shouldn\u2019t have to travel elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Laura Lugo, 7, held up two orange bags full of candy. Kit Kats are her favorite.<\/p>\n<p>She wore a long black dress \u2014 not to be anyone in particular for Halloween, she said, but because she wanted to be fancy. Her family had been <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/san-francisco-homeless-rv-ban-parking-290eaeb7e6b03e43e866e5b1b914da3b\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">living in an RV<\/a> and recently moved into an apartment with Compass\u2019 help.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love it,\u201d her mother, Laura Clavijo, said in Spanish of the new home.<\/p>\n<p>Children from neighborhood schools and child care programs came throughout the day, accompanied by teachers and other trusted adults who shepherd them safely along chaotic city streets. They sat on the ground in circles eating pizza, with some wearing pajamas for pajama day.<\/p>\n<p>Lucy Vang accompanied her 11-year-old son, who was holding a pumpkin. She doesn\u2019t like that her children witness substance abuse and scary street behavior. But then there are events like the pumpkin patch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have the luxury of attending these kinds of events in front of City Hall,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kisch said local businesses and groups were eager to donate to the event.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s so much stress and so much going on, it\u2019s very difficult right now,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we wanted to kind of come out here with joy as a form of resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By JANIE HAR SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 Children from San Francisco\u2019s Tenderloin ate pizza, jumped in a bouncy&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[5471,101,103,102,104,106,105,13528],"class_list":["post-30420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-pumpkin-patch","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-tenderloin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}