Connecting to Nearby Nature
Meet Anthony Khalil, who values connection to nature in his daily life and has helped others restore those connections throughout his career. As Anthony’s story illustrates, regularly connecting to nature provides many benefits, including healing and rejuvenation. A daily dose of nature becomes possible with nearby nature spaces and local food sources. This post is part of Profiles in Living Connected to Place, a series by Matt Biggar, Ph.D., that portrays individuals living connected to place with intention and the support of systems that make it possible. Prior posts can be found here.
For the past 20 years, Anthony Khalil has served the Bayview-Hunters Point community in southeast San Francisco. From 2004 to 2019, Anthony led programs and initiatives at the nonprofit Literacy for Environmental Justice. He ran baylands restoration projects that included using native plants from the nonprofit's large nursery and working with youth and volunteers from the nearby community. He's now the Food Sovereignty Director for Bayview-Hunters Point Community Advocates and is helping to create a community-owned co-op grocery store in the neighborhood.
Anthony is the first-born child of immigrants to the US. His father came from Egypt, and his mother from the Philippines. Before settling in his longtime home in San Francisco, Anthony grew up in the San Lorenzo Valley, a rural community located less than 75 miles from San Francisco that has been historically predominately white. He recalls Klu Klux Klan members recruiting at his high school in the 1990s. Anthony built friendships with the few other Brown and Black kids at his school. Many lived in a foster care group home, including some who were war refugees. He lost many of these friends to violence and structural oppression.
Reflecting on the racism and hardships he experienced growing up, Anthony shares, "My place kept me sane, next to a river and forest with clean air and water." His connection to nature continues to be a source of solace, inspiration, and meaning in his life.
Expanding access to nearby nature for the adults and youth in the systemically underserved Bayview-Hunters Point community is Anthony's passion. He sees himself contributing to healing and helping the community move from surviving to thriving, with connection to nature playing a central role. He often shares his knowledge of native ecology and indigenous wisdom around sustaining nature. He publicly advocates for the cleanup of toxins from local air, water, and land that has polluted the community for decades.
Anthony also connects to nature through food. His family shares a home with others through a community land trust, where they grow food, raise chickens, and tend bees. He and his wife have long supported and shopped at a local farmers market for produce from the surrounding greenbelt. According to Anthony, these sources of food provide "a meta-connection to nature" in which local nature offers nourishment. An avid outdoorsman, he is intimately familiar with the local fish in the surrounding bay and ocean where he and his son fish.
In 2019, Anthony was recognized as the Environmental Education Hero of the Year by Bay Nature magazine. Receiving the award, he shared, "It all boils down to putting your hands on the land and remembering how we're all connected." Nature connects us all, and Anthony reminds us of its vital importance in our daily lives. Nearby nature spaces help Anthony and those he inspires connect to nature daily.