City Government

Chief French to Cohost RCF Connect Fundraiser Gala Benefiting Black Women, and Girls

RCF Connects (formerly Richmond Community Foundation) will host a fundraiser gala on March 1 that will serve to support the nonprofit’s Equity for Black Women and Girls Initiative, which works to uplift and empower Black women and girls in the local community, including entrepreneurs and leaders.

Published

2 years ago

February 24, 2024

Oakland Post

Richmond Police Chief Bisa French. City of Richmond photo

The Richmond Standard

Richmond Police Chief Bisa French and Tanise Smith of the Equity for Black Women and Girls Task Force will serve as co-hosts for the event, which will take place from 7-10 p.m. at the Hilton in Concord.

Entrepreneur Jennifer Hammock will provide the keynote speech.

All of the contributions to the gala will support the program’s efforts.

The final day to purchase tickets and to sponsor the event is Feb. 23. Click here to do either or both or go to https://give.richmondcf.org/ge/ebwggala?fbclid=IwAR3dDkzRVtwxeui4_Dgk2MxY-1VcZYzkU5wRJ7NmqL9SD_xmgQJH27Fdq3s

RCF Connects is a long-running charitable foundation that works to uplift marginalized, impoverished, and disenfranchised members of the Richmond community.

The organization accomplishes this through a number of programs, including Housing First, the Electric Car program and through financial education via SparkPoint Contra Costa.

In 2020, RCF Connect launched Equity for Black Women and Girls because its members noticed that no local organization was focusing support for them in the community, according to Taylor Sims, director of the program. In fact, less than 1% of community dollars in Contra Costa go to black women and girls, a point the program wants to make known and to remedy.

As part of the Equity for Black Women and Girls, RCF Connects holds Sister Circle countywide, providing a safe space for women and girls to connect, have discussions and to learn to become trained facilitators, Sims said.

The program also operates Sistas SOAR (Success Opportunities Apprenticeship Resilience), an intensive, 24-week incubator program for Black women entrepreneurs in collaboration with Chase Minority Business and Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, according to Sims. The program provides feedback on their business and also a Shark Tank-style pitch competition.

In its first year, 14 participants graduated from the program and received subgrants to uplift their businesses. This year, Equity for Black Women and Girls is also set to incorporate digital marketing/branding training courtesy of Christina Kenney, who operates out of CoBiz Richmond, the coworking and business incubator in downtown Richmond.

All program efforts aim to ensure a greater share of community dollars are used to fund and train Black women entrepreneurs and leaders to build generational wealth and financial freedom. For more information, visit RCF Connects’ website here: https://rcfconnects.org.

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Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

4 days ago

July 5, 2026

Oakland Post

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Inaugural Juneteenth Awards Ceremony Celebrates the Fillmore’s Black History, Leadership and Resilience

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, Pastor Emeritus of Third Baptist Church, SF Mayor Daniel Lurie. Photo by Linda Parker Pennington.

By Linda Parker Pennington

The Fillmore Community Ambassadors held its first annual Juneteenth Wesley Johnson White Horse Awards ceremony on June 19 inside the newly reopened Fillmore Heritage Center.

The event featured awards for former San Francisco mayors London Breed and Willie Brown, along with Third Baptist Church Pastor Emeritus, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown.

The Koret Heritage lobby at the newly reopened center at 1330 Fillmore St. held a standing-room-only, culturally diverse and multi-generational audience while the art gallery featured photos of Fillmore community members in action, red Japanese lanterns, art and calligraphy, and Chinese artwork, giving the space a multicultural feel.

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood acknowledged that “the Fillmore community has had a difficult history. Thanks to Rev. Amos Brown’s continuous focus on accountability and resistance, you hold us accountable and continue to inspire us.”

Mahmoud is referring to the Fillmore’s Japanese residents who were forced from their homes and sent to concentration camps during World War II. Black people occupied those homes until the return of their Japanese neighbors and then gave them back, while homes that had been unoccupied were lost. The presence of the Asian community on Juneteenth is a testament to that shared history.

In receiving his honor, Amos Brown elicited a powerful spontaneous call-and-response, where members of San Francisco’s many Black churches proudly shouted out the names: “Bethel AME! Providence Baptist! Jones Memorial! Glide!”

Awards program Master of Ceremonies Shawn Richards of Brothers Against Guns warmly introduced Breed, highlighting her many accomplishments, particularly on “March 16, 2020, when she became the first mayor to shut down a major U.S. city due to COVID-19, saving thousands of lives.”

The audience was captivated by Breed’s emotional speech touching on past traumas, present conditions, and future hopes for the neighborhood where she grew up.

She recalled another trauma of the neighborhood during the City’s redevelopment era in the 1960s, where Black residents were forced to move with a promise of being able to return that was largely unfulfilled.

“We remember when this land was just a field because they bulldozed hundreds of Victorian homes that Black people owned. They built the Fillmore Center, where most Black people can’t afford to live or start their own business. But we are still here.”