Black and Brown Solidarity | Creative Dreaming, Second Session

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.

Group Therapy | Session 1

On Saturday morning, TFD in partnership with Yo Soy Ella, hosted group therapy. Sarah, our host and Founder of Yo Soy Ella, discussed what worth means to our participants. Sarah first led the group through check-in to start our conversation off. Sarah told us she likes to open up the session first with check-ins because sometimes we need to talk without a plan while Sarah is here to listen and ask questions. When the discussion of worth began, Sarah asked what does worth mean and how have you been able to exercise self-worth.

Thank you so much to Sarah and Yo Soy Ella for hosting a wonderful session. We look forward to our next session Wednesday, January 25 at 10:00 AM. Sign up here for our next session!

Yoga and Journaling | Session 1

PC: Maya Hill

In 2023, we are starting off the new year with several mental health workshops! Last Saturday, we held out first yoga and journaling session with Kathy Khang, a local yoga instructor. For these sessions, we wanted people to feel as safe and welcomed as possible. In turn, these sessions will be free to community members and their own guests.

First, Kathy led the group through a short breath work cycle to ease their minds. Then, she started with the journaling session. Kathy asked the group to write out what it means to belong in their opinion. After some shared their thoughts, they immediately went into gentle yoga. Their stretches included happy baby, downward dog, and child pose. No experience with yoga was needed for these simple and gentle poses!

Our guests explained they felt immediately better after the stretches. One of our past mentees explained that he had been experiencing back pain and after, he felt a lot of the pain was eliminated.

Thank you so much to our guests for coming and to Kathy for leading us through an amazing first session, Make sure to register for our next session on Saturday, January 28th at 10 AM!

Mental Health Kits

In 2022, TFD had a dream of creating healthy coping skills for Proviso youth. After experiencing many young souls lost to suicide, TFD wanted to become a space where mental health is normalized and honored. We exercised this through various types of mental health workshops like yoga, breathwork, group therapy, and art therapy. Yet, we wanted something that could provide our youth with healthy coping skills to deal with hard emotions It took many trials to dream up what our kit could look like, and at the end of 2022, we were ready to launch.

Our Big Bag of Feelings, was inspired by listening to our youth to see what they might want in the bag. We asked ourselves when we were younger, what may have aided us in our mental health journies. When you open the bag, you will first see a welcome card that includes everything included plus our creative partners, who happen to almost all be past mentees. Next, you will see a journal with journal prompts and pens. There is a feelings wheel, which helps identify what you are feeling with a matching keychain that allows you to write out said feeling. There are also many different fidget tools like a pop-it, stress ball, slug, flex rings, and more! As we launch more kits and hear more feedback, we will continue to update what comes in the bag.

TFD’s goal is to give away over a thousand kits to our local youth. This December, we were given the opportunity to hand out 150 kits to local high school students. We heard feedback like, “I needed this” or “I love what this says”. This January, we were also given the opportunity to visit two schools and hand out more kits.

None of this work would be possible without our friends and donors. We thank you for believing in us and the importance of our work. If you are interested in buying a bag, we have the option to buy a single kit or a Buy One Give One to sponsor a kit given away to our youth. Additionally, with a code, anyone from 15-22 who lives in the Proviso area can be given one for free. Reach out to our executive assistant, Maya (maya@thefirehousedream.org) for more details.

Creating A Brand | Part 4

Mentorship on Wednesday began with Sandra, our Mentorship Coordinator, in leading the mentees with an icebreaker. This icebreaker supported our mentees in acknowledging the good and bad parts of their days. Since not everyone has the opportunity to discuss how their days went, we value having conversations like these during our cohort.

Have you ever created your own brand? If you have, you know it is quite a process. We are happy to see all that our mentees have discovered throughout their journey in creating their brands. Amazingly, we can document the whole process through photos. Each group was able to continue working on their websites with finishing touches. Remember when we had a mini photoshoot? Well, the photos came out amazing and are currently being added into each mentees webstie.

It is bitter sweet to be approaching the end of this season’s mentorship. We are so proud of each and every mentee. So far we have 5 mentees in the process of creating their brands consisting of video games, podcasting, custom clothing with paints, and two photography brands! Stay tuned to see the finished products and all the websites created 100% by our mentees.

Photo Credit: Mariah