Belonging in Nature: August 2025

A sunny day over Crissy Field Marsh.

When: Friday, August 15th, 2025, 12–4 pm

Where: Presidio of San Francisco; specific meeting location will be in the confirmation email after registering. Registration is required.

Join us for our third session in our four-part Belonging in Nature: Queer and Trans Community Day summer series of collaborations with local artists, land stewards, and chefs to continue to deepen in relationship with ourselves, each other, and the natural world. We’ll begin the day by tending the land in a local marsh, and then transition into a conversation led by our collaborators Saguaro and Mateo, who will be leading us in discussion around how food has kept our indigenous knowledge alive through colonization. They’ll highlight where traditional food comes from, how to decolonize our food, and food from the diaspora. In this workshop they will be showcasing how to make tortillas from scratch, a process where we'll get to work with different types of masa harina, flowers and herbs that we get to press into our tortillas. We'll learn what lands our most popular foods come from, and how to be in right relation to the historical stewards of the lands we receive our food from. 

Saguaro's Bio:
Saguaro (they/them) has been cheffing it up at Open Test Kitchen this past year hosting COVID safe first Fridays in the spring of 2025. They are an aspiring curanderx, and working towards continuing oral traditions of recipes and song. Their ancestral lineage is from central Mexico (zacatecas and michoacan), and has a lot of knowledge around the food that is created from this region. They're currently working through new recipes to bring back to the community in the future, but you can find them listening to birds at Lake Merritt, practicing Purepecha, singing songs with Wakan Wiya and being a student of curanderismo. 

Mateo's Bio:
Mateo is a new chef from the Salinas Valley. They grew up with a family that worked in the fields and empaques, who hunted and fished and loved fres, bomb food. They're inspired by nature, herbalism, ancestral memory and the pleasure that is found in creating and sharing a good meal.

Please contact community@parksconservancy.org with any questions. This event is open to all community members.

Accessibility details: This event is fully outdoors, so masks will be optional, but please tune into the others around you and mask up when approaching anyone else wearing a mask. For the land stewardship component of the day, please reach out to community@parksconservancy.org with accessibility needs and we can work together to fit your needs. All community members are welcome at this event.

Groups

Groups of five or more require special arrangements and must be confirmed in advance. Please review the List of Available Projects and fill out the Group Project Request Form.

AGE, SKILLS, WHAT TO BRING:

• Volunteers of all ages are welcome.
• We'll be working rain or shine. Wear clothes that can get dirty. Long pants and closed-toe shoes are required. Bring layers for changing weather and rain gear if necessary.
• Bring a personal water bottle and sunscreen.
• No experience necessary. Training and tools will be provided. Fulfills community service requirements.

COVID-specific Guidelines

• Face coverings and social distancing are encouraged, but not required.
• Stay home and DO NOT attend if you:
  • Have any illness symptoms
  • Have tested positive for COVID-19
  • Suspect you have had contact with a COVID-19 positive case

The Golden Gate National Parks Volunteer Program is a cooperative parkwide effort of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, the National Park Service, and the Presidio Trust.