FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Dec. 12, 2024

MEDIA CONTACT: SF Public Defender’s Office | PDR-MediaRelations@sfgov.org

**PRESS RELEASE**

S.F. Public Defender’s MAGIC Programs Celebrate 20 Years of Service to Youth & Families in the Bayview and Fillmore Districts

SAN FRANCISCO – Today, the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office gathered with community partners to celebrate 20 years of its MAGIC programs (Mobilization for Adolescent Growth In Communities). For the past two decades, MAGIC has built and fostered partnerships that support its mission of keeping young people from the Bayview and the Fillmore districts from entering the criminal system. Since 2004, MAGIC has partnered with community-based, faith-based, and non-profit organizations, city and county agencies, schools, and other stakeholders to create opportunities for young people to grow and thrive in safe, healthy communities.

MAGIC serves as a convener, facilitating a wide variety of events and programs with local organizations and service providers that focus on the educational, economic, health, and juvenile justice needs of children, youth, and their families living in these communities. Here are some examples:

• MAGIC engages the Bayview Hunters Point and Fillmore Western Addition communities year-round by facilitating youth activities and workshops, producing weekly community resource calendars that list local events and opportunities, and hosting monthly convenor meetings with local organizations to collaborate, develop, inform, and improve neighborhood services. 
• MAGIC hosts annual events like backpack giveaways, summer literacy and holiday events, and youth talent showcases. 
• MAGIC also facilitates community service activities such as distributing Thanksgiving turkeys and fresh groceries to hundreds of families, and thousands of health and hygiene packs to families and unhoused people during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our MAGIC programs work to strengthen communities that are historically under-resourced and over-policed,” said San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju. “Ensuring that youth and families have access to opportunities and feel empowered is how we can create lasting community safety and break the intergenerational cycles of system involvement.”

“It’s a joy to serve our communities and to see our young people grow and develop their talents and academic achievements,” said Brittany Ford, MAGIC Executive Director. “MAGIC participants form strong community bonds through service and friendship and give back to the community themselves.” 

One of the speakers at the celebration was Brittani Mitchell, who became involved in Mo’MAGIC when she was in middle school, and is now a freshman at an Historically Black College in Maryland. “MAGIC didn’t just help me academically and personally – they taught me the importance of community. They showed me how powerful it is when people come together to support one another, and now I want to be that same source of light for someone else.” 

A History of MAGIC

MAGIC was founded in 2004 by the late Public Defender Jeff Adachi with community leaders in the Bayview to address the impact of trauma, poverty, and violence on youth in targeted districts, and to close the school-to-prison pipeline. In 2006, the program expanded from the Bayview to a second location in the Fillmore, and the two programs have been known as B’MAGIC and Mo’MAGIC. In 2022, under the leadership of current Public Defender Mano Raju, the two programs were consolidated as BMo’MAGIC with Brittany Ford named the Executive Director. 

Over the years, MAGIC has won numerous community awards. Most recently, in October 2024, B’MAGIC won the Outstanding Partner in Community Award from the Southeast Community Center.

##