The first week of November, TFD and Marvin Flavien partnered to start filming all the work we do here in our community. Marvin is from New Jersey and has a passion for creating fun branding videos. We are so excited to see the final project of the busy week we had of programming. For now, see below some BTS of the shoot!
Over the last two weeks, the team and community members were invited to restorative justice training. Specifically, Andrew Hong of We Each Belong, trained the team in how to lead healing circles, which is a native practice built on restorative justice. Over 4 days, the team got to know each other on a deeper level, creating a circle, and then started to dream what their own independent circles would look like in the future.
We see how impactful circles can be for our community members. This practice was built on the idea that healing can be achieved through conversation, but most importantly, listening. We can’t wait to see how circle will grow in the Proviso community!
Thank you, Andrew, for creating a safe environment for the team! We appreciate your wisdom and kindness.
As our fiscal year comes to a close this weekend, June 28th, we would love to share the photos the youth have taken at the Quinn Center. For two years now, we have partnered our youth interested in photography with the Quinn Center to take pictures at the event. This way, photographers gain more event photography experience all while working within their community. Our youth were at Quinn’s Christmas event, Turkey Giveaway, Senior celebrations, and more! Thank you to the Quinn Center for always considering our youth to capture meaningful events. Click through the gallery below for more pictures!
We hosted our second creative dreaming session last night on black and brown solidarity. After dinner, we opened up with reminders of our values on what creates a safe space. The youth then answered some of our reflection questions on black and brown communities, some of the biases we may have, and what we can learn from them. Then we continued building on ideas and topics we came up with last session. For inspiration, Maya showed the youth some of the past creative projects TFD has done. Each youth took one topic we came up with last time and brainstormed some creative projects that related to the topic. After, they shared their ideas and commented on others they found interesting.
Thank you so much to everyone who came yesterday! We are still looking for more youth who are passionate about black and brown solidarity. Contact Maya (maya@thefirehousedream.orga) for more information. Our last dreaming session is March 6th, 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM.
Today was an eventful day at TFD! We had two past mentees come back to lead worships for our new mentees, and it was amazing to welcome them back.
In the morning, Amanda from Amanda Leon Calligraphy came in to lead a calligraphy workshop. She provided the mentees with hand-written packets designed by herself! They used markers to trace and draw their own letters. Everyone was involved and engaged during her workshop and they loved having Amanda here!
Afterwards, Dulce came in for a Procreate 101 workshop. She taught mentees how to create a design in the app, Procreate. Everyone then played a game where each team came up with 3 words, then they passed the iPad throughout their group. Without talking, each person added to the drawing. Jordynne and Jocelyn won unanimously for their National Women’s Month drawing! Sandra then taught everyone how to digitize the drawings they created. It was a fun and eventful day and we are so grateful for everything accomplished so far!
