Anne Seeman is a local artist, musician and community activist. She was born in Madison, Wisconsin and fell in love with San Francisco as a kid, while on a family vacation there in the late 1960's. She later received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and moved to San Francisco in 1980, where she received her MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute. She moved to the Visitacion Valley neighborhood in 1991 and lives in a former bakery that survived the 1906 Earthquake.

With the birth of her daughter in 1994, Anne became determined to create a better neighborhood for her daughter and all the children of Visitacion Valley. At the time the playgrounds were in ruins. Coincidentally the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department (SFRPD) began organizing meetings in the community to prioritize improvements to local parks and playgrounds. The Trust for Public Land (TPL) helped facilitate these meetings and Anne and other neighbors became part of the committee and founded the Friends of Visitacion Valley Parks. Anne was a leading member of the group and advocated for her community at City Hall and McLaren Lodge.

Inspired by positive results, Anne envisioned possibilities for a new kind of open space on 6 contiguous lots, some abandoned and overgrown with weeds, which became the Visitacion Valley Greenway. Together with Rebecca Lillis of TPL, they mapped a conceptual plan giving each lot its unique theme. The Greenway plan included community gardens, a native plant garden, a children's play garden and a public plaza which functions as a public commons and outdoor classroom.

At this time the SF Water Department hoped to sell the lots to developers. The Friends of Visitacion Valley Parks launched a petition drive to build community support for their plan, and neighbors Fran Martin and Jim Growden joined the effort, bringing their design skills and commitment to the project. TPL helped the group navigate the political process, which eventually won the community a chance to carry out their vision in partnership with SFRPD.

Anne is currently the garden coordinator of the Agriculture Garden of the Visitacion Valley Greenway. She sees growing food as a means to build bridges across language and cultural barriers, since every culture has agriculture and our climate allows for so much variety all year long. Anne supervises volunteer workdays twice weekly, and coordinates garden workshops in partnership with SFRPD's Community Gardens Team.

She produces special events such as the Peace and Unity Celebration on the Greenway, linking the arts with environmental education and providing opportunities for local artists to perform for their neighbors. She partners with schools, daycare centers, and community centers to develop programming for all ages. She and her volunteer crew together come up with ways to celebrate the seasons and the phases of the garden, for example the Ladybug Festival, and a Spring Festival which included an Easter Egg Hunt. Anne appreciates how the vision for the Greenway has evolved and is much richer for everyone's contributions.