Jonathan Gomwalk, 43, has spent the past seven years transforming the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG) from a local gardening club into a national model for environmental job training in inner city neighborhoods. The manager of the Transitional Employment Program (TEP) since its inception, he created the nation’s first welfare-to-work program with a strong environmental component.

Many of SLUG’s clients had spent their entire adult lives either on public assistance or in the criminal justice system. And while many clients grapple with substance abuse and mental illnesses and emotional problems, the organization and its managers provide a caring, structured, disciplined work environment that supports their recovery. For these hardworking individuals, SLUG and the Transitional Employment Program are a means to earn a living and, more importantly, a means for earning self-respect.

Gomwalk was promoted to executive director in the summer of 2003 and has been responsible for restructuring the organization and paying down over half a million dollars in back taxes. He also has developed a summer program for young residents of the City’s Alemany Housing Project at the adjacent St. Mary’s Youth Farm. Earlier this month he coordinated a Planting Day at the Farm in celebration of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Over 100 young people from all over Northern California participated in the event.

Jonathan’s longstanding commitment to community service includes tutoring children in a Bayview after-school program, serving on the Bayview Project Area Committee, and serving as a past president and current board member of the San Francisco Clean City Coalition.

Jonathan has worked alongside thousands of everyday San Franciscans and dozens of City officials (including every District Supervisor and Mayors Brown and Newsom) on neighborhood cleanups in every quarter of the city. He is recognized as a committed, caring and competent leader.