Our Mission

San Francisco Cultural Arts Traditions, (SFCAT) strives to make multiculturalism a tangible reality by uniting people in the celebration of cultural arts traditions with music, dance, artistry and food, and through this endeavor, benefit our communities.

Our History

San Francisco’s Carnaval blossomed from its inception in Precita Park in the Mission District 33 years ago. Its growth and development is attributable to the passion of its founding members who longed for the traditional Carnaval celebrations of their native homelands.

Those founding members were composed of people from many cultures, and walks of life ranging from musicians, dancers, artists and a host of local residents that saw the joy and happiness that came when they gathered in this multicultural celebration.

San Francisco Cultural Arts Traditions is a cultural arts and education non profit composed of people from many cultures, who have been involved with Carnaval and Cinco de Mayo, as board members, volunteers, teachers, performers and event planners through the different organizations that have produced San Francisco’s Carnaval over the last 3 decades.

San Francisco Cultural Arts Traditions was formally established in December of 2009. However, the composition of our members embodies the entire 33 year experience the San Francisco’s Carnaval has enjoyed in our community. Our mission is to unite people through the celebration of cultural arts traditions like the production of Carnaval and other special cultural events that add to and enrich our diverse communities.

Our Future

From the beginning, one of our core strategies has been to encourage awareness and education of cultural traditions for our children through our participating contingent (K-12) schools.

Each year hundreds of our students from all grade levels, along with their Carnaval instructors, participate and perform with performing groups in the parade and festivals. Their parents participate by being supportive of their children’s education and, in some cases, by joining the contingents and performing groups.

Our celebrations will provide a venue for many community based organizations, (CBOs), to offer their services and advise all segments of the community in an environment that is engaging and proactive. Those services include health screening, environmental awareness and social and civil services. In addition, our venues will allow arts organizations and local artists that wish to perform and showcase their artwork in our festivals an opportunity to garner wide exposure for their work.

Our Goal

San Francisco Cultural Arts Traditions’ mission is to make multiculturalism a tangible reality by uniting people in the celebration of cultural arts traditions with music, dance, artistry and food, and through this endeavor, benefit our communities. As defined, this mission has a cultural arts and educational philanthropic purpose; yet its core mandate will allow it to achieve a specific goal, to benefit the community at large. This will allow us to greatly broaden the opportunity to receive funding from both foundations and corporations. The enormous need for developing new and better venues that showcase the cultural arts traditions require that we expand our outreach to enhance all these funding sources.

We believe that opportunity springs from bringing together community conscious citizens from all walks of life along with responsible corporations, and city agencies, to celebrate cultural diversity. These celebrations nourish, heal and sustain a healthy and vibrant community. Through the production of our cultural celebrations we hope to continue to benefit our community, the arts and the social fabric of San Francisco.