At any given point, there are hundreds of San Francisco-based campaigns on funding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Tragically, the volume and quick turnaround often mean that some of these don't meet their fundraising goals, whether they are good ideas or not. This is why we've decided to give a boost to some local campaigns that we've deemed worthy of your hard-earned cash.

Murals are a long-held tradition in San Francisco, and the city is home to hundreds across the various districts. Leadership High School takes this legacy to heart with their now annual Week Without Walls -- a single week where students are outside of the classroom to work on a project alongside professional artists and learn about mural art culture and history. Last year's inaugural piece was such a success that students have requested in return.

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Live Oak School Potrero Hill Learning Garden/100 Gardens Initiative

Last week, we broke down the crowdfunding process for you and pitched an awesome organization working to promote sexual health awareness. This week's local crowdfunded campaign is also about public health -- this time cultivating green thumbs and educating the community about healthy food choices.

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At any given point, there are hundreds of San Francisco-based campaigns on funding platforms Kickstarter and Indiegogo. For those of you who have missed the crowdfunding revolution, here's the lowdown: An individual or organization posts a fundraising campaign to one of these websites. This includes a quantified goal, a description of what they want to do with the money (produce a play, build a community garden, create a start-up), a tiered system of rewards for donors who choose to participate (tickets to an event, the end product, your name on a plaque), and a deadline to come up with the money. Then, hopefully, the pledges start pouring in. Anyone can pledge a certain amount toward their end goal. If they've reached their goal by the end of the allotted time period, they get the money and go make their thing. If they don't meet the goal, no one's credit cards get charged -- it's an all-or-nothing approach.

Tragically, this means that some of these don't meet their fundraising goals, whether they are good ideas or not. This is why we've decided to give a boost to some local campaigns that we've deemed worthy of your hard-earned cash.

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Marilyn Roxie

Since the Gold Rush brought miners and sailors to our city, the disproportionate amount of men to women and their transient lifestyles fostered a sexually liberal environment that has bloomed for decades. The city's now got one of the highest number of sex workers per capita in both illegal and legal trades, necessitating a rich history of activism in sexual politics. For the city with at least a dozen annual occasions to don leather (or nothing at all) out on the streets, the Center for Sex and Culture is putting it all out there in a new mural celebrating S.F.'s sex-positive community and their achievements.

See also:

This American Whore Podcast Seeks to Demystify Sex Work

Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers Is More than Grief and Death

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Brett Hall

At a reading not long ago, award-winning author Dorothy Allison (Bastard out of Carolina, Trash, The Women Who Hate Me) smiled in that knowing Southern way and told the audience, "I'ma fuck you up."

The crowd laughed, but underneath the breezy sentiment lay the startling truth: She does fuck you up -- brutally, irrevocably, magnificently -- and sometimes all those ways at once.

See also:

Michelle Tea on Sister Spit, Dorothy Allison, and Valencia: The Movie

Femmepire Records: Celeste Chan on Unapologetic, Riotous Femmedom

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From last year's benefit at the Academy of Sciences

Come one come all! Please join us in spreading the holiday cheer and helping fight cancer at SF Weekly's Snow Ball Holiday Benefit at San Francisco's Aquarium of the Bay. While we can't make any promises about it actually snowing in the city, we can guarantee that this will be a night you won't want to miss out on. This year features a "Wintry" theme (cocktail attire -- let's get classy folks), with an open bar (we'll repeat that again: OPEN BAR).

See also:

SF Weekly Web Awards Party 2011: Pictures and Winners

Cute Overload: SPCA Pet Adoption Holiday Windows and 3D Light Show with Nutcracker Dancers

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There's nothing quite as heartbreaking as seeing a shuttered movie theater, and as a result, it's hard to go more than a mile in San Francisco without being heartbroken. I can hardly ever go into the Haight without being overcome with sadness about the loss of the Red Vic. There's a lot of things to feel sad about in the Haight, admittedly, but damn, I miss the Red Vic so much.

But the Roxie Theater in the Mission has been hanging in there, not just as an operating movie theater but as one that concentrates on independent, experimental, and lower-profile films -- the kind of place that would never devote a week to show the Indiana Jones or Pirates of the Caribbean movies (just to cite totally random examples that may or may not have premiered at the Castro Theater in recent years). And they need our help to keep it that way.

See Also:

Last Chance to See Christopher Nolan's Batman Films in Glorious 35mm

John Waters Explains His Love for S.F. Muni, the Roxie Theater, and Die Antwoord

Castro Theatre to Start Showing Blockbusters

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We tried to get through this post without using the word CAN excessively, but we just don't see how you CAN look at something like the San Francisco CANstruction Event and not go a little ape with the puns. Even the organizers are getting in on the act with this year's theme, the CANnes Film Festival. Too cute.

See also:

San Francisco Landmarks Made from Canned Food

Local Food Banks and Shelters Lose $600,000 in Funding

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The Mindblown Labs team. Jason Young, far right.

While I was asking my parents for money in high school, my classmate Jason Young was making it. In the days when AOL reigned supreme, Jason was the underage owner of a travel agency, just one of the businesses he started to pay for the two hour bus ride from Inglewood to the small, private high school we attended in West Hollywood, where he academically dominated our entire class in order to maintain his scholarship.

You may guess where this is going, but it doesn't make it any less impressive: he was the first black valedictorian at our high school, and he went straight to Harvard on the Ron Brown Scholar Program, where he continued to rack up a lot of "firsts," including being the first one to graduate college in his family, his single mother at the helm.

See also:

The Silent History for Interactive Readers: A Novel Concept

Pornographer Art Mitchell's Daughter Kickstarts Film about Growing Up in the Industry

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Chris Benton

Sandcastle from last year's Leap contest

Ocean Beach is typically a haven for surfers, dog-owners, and burnouts, but one day a year (Saturday, Oct. 20), the bonfire-scorched sands get molded and shaped into massive works of art at Leap's Annual Sandcastle Contest. Now in its 29th year, the contest features teams of architects, engineers, contractors, designers, corporations, and local elementary school students working to create the biggest and best sand sculptures. Free and open to the public, thousands of people flock to Ocean Beach each year to view the contest, which is evaluated by a panel of celebrity judges. This year's theme is "2012 Leap Year (Things that Jump!)," so expect to see a lot of animals in action and characters rising from the sands.

See also:

Five Reasons S.F. Is the Best Place to Trick-or-Treat

San Francisco's Top 10 Places to Take or Act Like a Kid

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