Mar 17, 2022
In our last episode, we met
Danielle Fernandez briefly when she told us
all about the 10-year vision she's realizing out at Calibird and
Bee Pollinator Sanctuary. In this podcast, we get to know
Danielle.
Danielle's parents were born and
raised in San Francisco. They met at Sears and Roebuck on Geary and
Masonic in the Sixties. After they were married and started having
kids, the young couple moved down the Peninsula, but didn't stop
coming to The City regularly for big family dinners. The Fernandez
family would hit up spots like Bruno's, Caesar's, Green Valley,
Spenger's (across the Bay). Danielle describes what these dinners
were like for a young kid like her.
Her mom had a successful
food-demonstration business in the Eighties. They made the stuff
people would hand out as samples at grocery stores back in the day.
And sometimes, Danielle would go with her mom on runs to the
stores.
In her teens, Danielle and her
friends came to San Francisco a lot, mostly to go to raves held all
over town. Getting out of the house involved some creative trickery
that many of you might relate to. She says other kids at school
might've thought she was a druggie, but in fact, she was just
having a good time sober. She describes some of the goofy stuff she
and her friends did.
In high school, Danielle worked at a
pet store, where she learned to work with animals. After
graduation, she took a stab at vet tech school, but didn't stick
with it. From there, she worked in bio-tech for a while, but she
didn't like that much either. Then a friend was looking through an
old book of Danielle's drawings. They knew nothing about her
artistic past, and asked why she wasn't still pursuing that. For
Danielle, it was an awakening.
But it was Project Runway
that really kicked things into gear. She ended up going to Parsons
in New York and lived there for many years after graduating. She
did well with fashion, but shifted her focus to "fast fashion,"
with the idea that she wanted to create practical clothes for the
masses. It wasn't long, though, before she discovered inadequacies
and injustices of that industry.
All this coupled with homesickness
was drawing Danielle back to the Bay. And so, after nearly 10 years
in New York, in 2018, she decided to pack up and head out west. Her
aunt's house in the Bayview suddenly was available to her and her
partner, and she was able to get a job here. We rewind a little to
hear Danielle's version of the story of her and Isaiah's
meeting.
Isaiah recounts the story from his
perspective. For a refresher, check out Isaiah's podcasts with us
from 2020: Part 1/Part 2. Dani sent care packages
to Isaiah while he worked in a dangerous situation in Santa Cruz
county. We hear all about their whirlwind first day together all
over the Bay Area.
We end the episode with Danielle and
Isaiah's thoughts on what it means to still be here in San
Francisco.
We recorded this podcast at the
Calibird and Bee Pollinator Sanctuary in the Bayview in March
2022. Photo by Michelle Kilfeather