Senior Stories | A Collaboration With Quinn Center

This past fall, our mentees collaborated with Quinn Center to highlight the stories of seniors in our community. Our partnership with the Quinn Center and seniors was to amplify community members’ voices. Maywood is an inter-generational community and TFD values the stories of those that have built the community up. Our mentees learned about an earlier Maywood and those that have lived here for decades. We brought in 4 community members to tell us about their journey in the Proviso District and how it has impacted them, as well as what future they hope for. Here are their stories.

Mazell Skyes

Martha Minich

Lynessa Greer

Alice Ocrey

check out some behind the scenes from this film project:

Group Project Mentee Headshots

Our Executive Director Jasmine led this workshop on how to take a proper headshot. Our mentees have learned so much during their time here at The Firehouse Dream, and learning about photography has been one of our main focuses this mentorship. Throughout their 6 weeks here they have grown so much and it has been fun to see their photography skills grow with them.

Thank You Jasmine for leading this workshop!

Photo Credit: Mya Frank, Houmam Kassar, Jasmyn Scavella, Cristal Andrade,

Writing Workshop

Jessica led the Interns through a writing workshop about personal narratives. We learned about the power of our stories and how to craft them through different activities. In one of our activities, we all wrote a story based on our different ideas and sentences. We would all pass around a paper with a short sentence and try to make a story out of it. Thank you Jessica.

Thank so much Jessica Rivera, another one of our interns, for taking these pictures.