San Francisco Fire Youth Academy - Double AA Community Spotlight
"Picture babies falling in a river. Do you dive in and pull them out one at a time? Or do you go upstream and stop them from falling in?"
Captain Antione Davis, president of the San Francisco Black Firefighters Association (SFBFA), first heard a version of that question in a class on public policy and poverty. His answer shapes how the association serves San Francisco's young people.
Rescue is noble work, and firefighters know it better than anyone. They run toward danger so others can escape it. Yet no city can rescue its way to a better future. Someone has to walk upstream and ask why so many children are falling into the river in the first place.
Malcolm X understood the power of reaching young people early, "Tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today." The firefighters of SFBFA have built their work around that belief.
A legacy of going upstream
SFBFA began in 1972, when Black firefighters in San Francisco organized to demand fair treatment inside their own department. They fought for equal hiring, fair promotions and better training. They joined the International Association of Black Professional Fire Fighters (IABPFF) as a local chapter. More than five decades later, about 170 members carry that work forward from a red and white building on Third Street in the Bayview.
In 2003, the association turned its attention to the city's teenagers. It founded the San Francisco Fire Youth Academy, a free program that meets young people before they reach the river's edge.
An academy for the whole person
Every Saturday, teenagers ages 14 to 18 from across San Francisco arrive at SFBFA headquarters. Working firefighters volunteer their time to teach them. Students learn fire safety and first aid, and they earn CPR certification through the American Heart Association.
Firefighting is one part of the lesson. The rest builds the whole person. Students learn to manage money, eat well and set goals. They study mental health and wellness and have access to mental health services. They sit down one on one with college counselors and rehearse for job interviews. Each student has a mentor in uniform.
Captain Davis describes the goal as "well developed human beings." Some graduates go on to wear the badge. Others build careers in business and public service. All of them carry the academy's lessons for the rest of their lives.
Every Saturday adds up. Since 2003, more than 500 young people have walked through the academy’s doors, and about 70 more apply each year. Each one gains a firefighter mentor along the way. Five graduates have gone on to complete City EMT training and now stand in the fire department’s hiring process, ready to serve the city that raised them.
Sometimes the training matters in an instant. At a shopping mall, a person began to choke. An academy student stepped in and used the Heimlich maneuver to save that person’s life. Skills like these give students more than a certificate. They give a young person proof that they matter and can make a difference for the people around them. Students carry that confidence long after their Saturday mornings at the firehouse end.
"It is our responsibility"
Captain John Smith, Jr. runs the academy as executive director and serves as SFBFA vice president. He sees mentorship as a calling every adult in the community shares.
"The mentee doesn't get to choose the mentor. It is our responsibility to help the community."
His words hold a powerful truth. Every young person deserves an adult who believes in them, and the adults who step forward change what those young people become. Mentorship is a gift. It costs a few hours and returns a lifetime. Every week, the volunteers of SFBFA give that gift, and their students carry it forward.
Captain Davis holds his students to the same standard of care. Students still stumble, and Davis expects them to. Failure, in his view, is a part of growth. What he asks in return is a promise that graduates give back and become stewards of their community.
His message to every student rests on faith in what they can become.
"You have the capacity, the ability, the intelligence. You have everything you need. You need to find a way to tell yourself yes."
Proof of the promise
Tyler Blue told himself yes. For as long as he can remember, he dreamed of becoming a firefighter. In 2021, he brought that dream to the academy, where working firefighters became his teachers and mentors on Saturday mornings.
He kept his goal in sight after the academy. He enrolled in City EMT, a training program that prepares young adults for careers in emergency medicine, and earned his EMT certification. Today he serves as a firefighter with Alameda County Hand Crew 8. Hand crews work the front lines of wildfires, cutting containment lines by hand to stop a fire’s spread.
[PHOTO: Tyler Blue] Caption: Tyler Blue, San Francisco Fire Youth Academy alumnus and firefighter with Alameda County Hand Crew 8
This October, Blue came back to the community that set him on his path. At SFBFA's fundraising gala for the academy, he took the stage as its alumnus speaker. The evening’s program introduced him with a simple mission: dream, train, serve. It captured his journey in a single line: exposure leads to opportunity, and determination turns a dream into a career.
Every student who walks into the academy on a Saturday morning carries a dream of their own. Blue shows them where that dream can lead.
A village answers the call
Captain Davis sees the academy as one piece of a much larger effort.
"It takes a village to raise a child, and our program is only a small microcosm."
Part of that village gathered in San Francisco on October 3, 2026, for SFBFA's fundraising gala benefiting the academy. San Francisco Fire Department Chief Dean Crispen took the stage, and District Attorney Brooke Jenkins gave the keynote. Academy instructor Janaina Yera-Paez closed the night.
Dahlias, San Francisco's official flower, sat on every table. A card beside them called the dahlia a symbol of resilience and the strength to grow through hardship. It closed with a line worth remembering: "With strong roots and a caring community, possibility blooms."
For Davis, the businesses in the room mattered.
"It makes me feel good, and it shows how imperative it is to see businesses support the gala. This is support for well developed human beings. Not only firefighters. Our students go on to the workforce and to politics."
Why Double AA stands with them
Double AA Corporation was honored to attend and sponsor a table at the gala and to support SFBFA and the San Francisco Fire Youth Academy. The wholesale fuel company and owner of DoubleTime stations across California backs youth programs across the Bay Area, from ALAS in Half Moon Bay to Youth First San Francisco.
Double AA shares the academy's vision. A business that serves a community also belongs to it. The teenagers who train at the firehouse today will lead San Francisco tomorrow, and every adult around them shares responsibility for how ready they are. Double AA accepts its part of that responsibility with gratitude.
The responsibility we share
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. measured greatness by service to others. In his 1968 sermon "The Drum Major Instinct," he told his congregation that "everybody can be great, because everybody can serve." The academy gives every reader a way to serve.
- Donate to the academy through its donation page. Gifts from companies and individuals keep the program free for every student.
- Refer a student. If you know a San Francisco teenager ages 14 to 18 who would thrive with a mentor, point them to sffireyouthacademy.org.
- Volunteer or sponsor their next program. Contact Captain John Smith, Jr. John@sffireyouthacademy.org.
- Follow on Instagram: SFBlackFirefighters and SFFireYouth
The river keeps running, and Captain Davis's question stays with us. Each of us can choose to stand upstream. Every Saturday, the firefighters of SFBFA show what that choice looks like.
Double AA Corporation thanks Captain Davis, Captain Smith and every SFBFA volunteer who answers that question for San Francisco's young people. The future, as the gala promised, is all in.