Black and Brown Solidarity | Planning

After three brainstorming sessions, the black and brown dreaming solidarity project has commenced. The youth worked on their creative projects with their respective groups this week. One group is working on videography, another on spoken word, and all the youth are recruiting for an art project where other youth in the neighborhood submit their art supporting black and brown solidarity.

We are still recruiting for our art project! Know any youth who would want to submit their art to be displayed at our convening on June 5th and paid $20 for their submission. Fill out this link to submit a piece.

Black and Brown Solidarity | Creative Dreaming Session 3

Last week, we held our last dreaming session for our black and brown creative projects. We are so happy with the turnout and involvement of our Proviso youth. In this session, we finalized topics for our creative projects and assigned managers. But before, we always start with dinner and a check-in. We had a great conversation about our favorite cultural foods with recommendations on foods/restaurants to try. Then we did a cultural connection on the usage of slurs in the youth community. Then, we started talking about our finalized project ideas. We will have three different projects all surrounding black and brown solidarity in the Proviso district. We cannot wait for you all to see them!

Next, week we will start working on our projects this week!

Fall Photography with the Quinn Center

We are excited to wrap up our photography fall partnership with the Quinn Center of Maywood. Our youth who had gone through our programming continued their photography skills by capturing events at the Quinn Center. We are so grateful for the continuous partnership and opportunity. This fall, some young adults took pictures for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. See more pictures below of the different events! Thanks to the Quinn Center and our photographers, Adlemy, Saffron, and Tracy!

TFD 5-Year Anniversary!

Wow! TFD has turned 5 years old! We are so excited to celebrate another year of great opportunities and achievements that have made TFD what it is today. The Firehouse continues to create a safe space for BIPOC youth in the Proviso community. We do this through our 3 pillars creativity, mental health, and financial wellness. Through the beginning of our programming, we focused on building creative skills for the youth. Recently, we thought it would be important focus on mental health resources through our mental health kits and mental health workshops. We have had many achievements over these 5 years and we wanted to celebrate with our community.

First, we had our own red carpet for those who came to celebrate with us! Check out our gallery for some pictures! Then we went into social hour before dinner. Everyone was so excited for the taquiza grill. After we had a gallery which showed some of our highlights over the last five years. Mentees Maya (Spring ‘21) and Tracy (Spring ‘22) shared how the Firehouse impacted their lives. It was a beautiful night that we are so grateful to share with out community. Our hearts are so full!

Cheers to another year!

Coping Skills & The Basics Of Illustrator

Can you believe we are already halfway through week 4 of mentorship? On Wednesday, our mentees participated in a coping skills workshop led by Erika Luna from the Oasis Project. As mental health is one of our three pillars, it is important we incorporate it into our mentorship. Throughout this workshop, coping skills were discussed amongst our mentees and Erika Luna. Our mentees learned how to deal with stress more constructively, establishing boundaries on what you cannot control, and skills to deal with stress.

We then transitioned to our next workshop with our mentorship coordinator, Sandra. The mentees and Sandra talked about the basics of Adobe Illustrator on an Apple iPad. All through this software was challenging to use, it was rewarding to see our mentees work together to meet their goal of designing something new!