The Third Annual Lovers Lane Celebration:
What It Takes to Build and Fund a Community Event
in San Francisco’s La Misión

by Joshua Baltodano
February 9, 2024

San Francisco’s La Misión will be hosting its third annual Lovers Lane celebration this Saturday, February 10th for Valentine’s Day Weekend. A beloved event for Mission District locals, Lovers Lane was founded by Lucia Gonzalez Ippolito, aka CiaLuArt, and Alfredo Uribe, aka El Lechero, to highlight Balmy Alley, a historic corridor off 24th street covered in murals that capture the struggles within the Mission District, and to provide a space of refuge for artists and locals to come together. 

Lovers Lane is set to take place this Saturday, February 10th from 11am to 6pm on Balmy Alley and 25th Street and will stretch to Harrison and Treat Street. 

The event will feature over 55 Frisco vendors selling clothing, jewelry, photography, food, and so much other creative art, including some of the same street vendors that have been banned from selling at 16th and 24th Bart Street Plazas. The recent ban was extended another 6 months this past Monday by Sup. Hillary Ronen and Mayor London Breed. Lovers Lane will also have live performances from Frisco artists and poets including A-1, Alien Mac Kitty, MC Pauze, and several more including live bands, dj’s, and even local poets including one of the owners of 24th Street’s Medicine for Nightmares Bookstore, Josiah Luis. 

So much love, sweat, and tears have gone into, and continue to go into, making this event a reality; all organizing was done grassroots. 

In fact, the organizers of Lovers Lane personally fundraised and received donations of over $7,000 to cover permit fees, advertising, rentals, and even its own private security to ensure no SFPD presence is near the vicinity, aside from one SFFD representative that will be there Saturday. The organizers have had to invest an additional $3,000 to cover additional costs–and charges that may arise the day of. 

Lovers Lane has no corporate sponsors; this event symbolizes the community working together, and protecting one another, without pigs.