Canal Residents Shape the Future at Second Nuestro Canal, Nuestro Futuro Community Fair
August 11, 2025
Following a successful launch last fall, the Nuestro Canal, Nuestro Futuro (NCNF) Initiative hosted a second community fair on Saturday, May 3rd, 2025. This community fair focused on honing in on Canal residents’ vision for the Canal’s future while engaging with community members on the issues that matter most and sharing valuable present-day resources.
This vibrant community resource fair connected around 400 people, including staff, organizations, volunteers, and community members. Attendees were welcomed by volunteers and then invited to explore around 20 booths hosted by 28 local organizations. Participating organizations include: Nuestro Canal, Nuestro Futuro, Canal Alliance departments, the City of San Rafael, Marin County, San Rafael Police Department, San Rafael Fire Department, Transportation Authority of Marin, Canal Arts, Voces del Canal, Marin Transit, Golden Gate Transit, Canal Futbol Club, the Exploratorium, Bay Area Discovery Museum, Cool the Earth, Ride and Drive Clean, Rising Sun Center for Opportunity, the Multicultural Center of Marin, New Beginnings Law Center, Marin County League of Women Voters, San Rafael Library and Recreation, Marin Promise Partnership, Buckelew Programs, and the Boy Scouts. At these booths, participants were invited to learn about the resources and programs offered by various organizations while enjoying tacos and participating in children’s activities. To make the event as accessible as possible to Canal residents, Vivalon provided shuttles to and from the event to local meeting points around the Canal again after positive feedback from the October launch party. Thank you to our sponsors, the Strategic Growth Council, the Transportation Authority of Marin, Coastal Conservancy, and Bio Marin.
The City of San Rafael, Canal Alliance, Multicultural Center of Marin, Greenbelt Alliance, Exploratorium, and the Bay Area Discovery Museum hosted a booth to engage with the community on the latest updates on the Sea Level Rise project, sharing proposed adaptation strategies, feasible outcomes, short and long term goals, and a kids water table experiment. The Transportation Authority of Marin hosted a booth surveying community members on their current Bellam Boulevard Off-Ramp & Safety Improvements Project. The City of San Rafael also discussed its ongoing East San Rafael Parking study, which aims to ease the burden of daily parking and find solutions that work for the entire East San Rafael community.
At the Nuestro Canal, Nuestro Futuro stations, guests were invited to share feedback, reactions, and new ideas regarding the initiatives’ guiding principles, plan themes, and a community resource asset map. Community discussion resulted in 7 plan themes and 68 new assets and resources. The new themes are: Housing, Education, Economic Development, Transportation, Cultural Preservation, Health and Safety, and Climate and Sustainability. The updated asset map includes local and commercial businesses, recreational places, community organizations, and religious spaces that community members have identified as resources in their everyday lives. A data analysis summary is available here.
Looking ahead to the rest of this year, the Nuestro Canal, Nuestro Futuro initiative will launch working groups, NCNF ambassadors, and community workshops to further engage community members in the project’s visioning and planning process (More details to come soon). Our next event is a community workshop on August 2nd with a focus on education and placemaking, followed by a community fair on October 4th. Join us!
