City Gardens Series: Tim Wong of Sisterhood Gardens

​In this podcast, we continue our visit at Sisterhood Gardens and our series on City Gardens.

Today, we meet Sisterhood volunteer Tim Wong. Tim shares his life story with us. He grew up on the Peninsula and moved to The City in 2016. This coincided with the founding of Sisterhood Gardens.

Tim grew up in an area replete with butterflies, something he was drawn to from a young age. He was interested in the insects and their relationship with plants. His earliest memories of coming to San Francisco involve his grandparents, who lived in the Sunset. His school took the kids to the California Academy of Sciences, which we'll get back to in a moment. Tim was in The City almost every weekend.

He never necessarily envisioned himself living in San Francisco. After high school, he moved to San Diego to go to UCSD, where he studied environmental systems, ecology, and evolution as well as marine science. He was aiming toward marine biology. Through school, he worked in an aquarium, which later led to his volunteering at Cal Academy of Sciences.

Today, Tim works at the academy in its rainforest exhibit. As we're discussing his various rolls at work, we take a detour to hear some of the places Tim has dived, including off the shore here in Northern California.

Tim says he's drawn to his work at the academy and the garden because of the sense of community and giving back. We end this podcast with Tim's thoughts on what it means to still be here.

If you'd like to volunteer at Sisterhood or get involved somehow, please visit their website.

We recorded this podcast at Sisterhood Gardens in Oceanview in March 2022.

Photography by Jeff Hunt