MEET OUR INTERNS

I’m excited to share we pivoted to an internship/mentorship program. Due to low winter enrollment, it made me take a deeper look at how we can offer our creative workshops in a way where parents, caregivers and teens could see the value in what we are teaching them!

When we experience challenges, I do my best to approach it through an asset lens. I began asking questions like: How can we challenge the starving artist narrative? How can we get parents/caregivers to see the value in letting their teen participate in our programming?

That’s when a paid internship/mentorship concept was born. We are in an essence doing the same thing, but are being more strategic. We are training 5 teens in the areas of photography, film, brand identity, social media strategy and more, while partnering with businesses and organizations in the community. So that our interns can learn to collaborate and gain real world experience as they grow their portfolios….all while getting paid.

Getting paid was a necessary decision if we truly want to be an organization that believes in equity, in which, we consider the needs of our community and actually help to create solutions for those needs.

We are excited for our first paid 12 week internship and can’t wait to see where it goes!

So friends, I’m excited to share our very first cohort of interns with you!

You can learn more about them HERE!

VISION BOARD WORKSHOP

We had so much fun at our vision board workshop. Toria led us through some breathwork, and how to create a vision board with purpose and intention. While we met up virtually, we got to enjoy tea and hot cocoa together, as we dreamed and imagined together!

POTTERY FIELD TRIP

We had so much fun at our pottery field trip! We were able to bring a group of 8 teens to Gnarware Studio located in Pilsen, in which their staff led us through a pottery workshop. Our teens had so much fun! We look forward to being able to host more field trips in the future!

Sharing Our Stories with Mental Health

We hosted our first virtual panel discussion this past weekend, and it was such an honor to hear from our storytellers, as they shared their mental health journeys with us.

The Firehouse Dream believes in the power of our stories, and that our lived experiences matter. We hope that in hosting conversations with everyday community members on the topic of mental health, that our teens and young adults would feel safe connecting with a safe adult and/or seek professional counseling.

Some of my take a ways from this panel discussion was:

1. Each person’s mental health journey will look different.

2. It takes time to find the right therapist.

3. Sometimes we just need more kindness.

4. Mental health isn’t just talk therapy, it’s so much more. It’s what we eat, implementing exercise, meditation, it’s connecting with ourselves through art and writing, for some it’s medication, and so much more.

You can watch the full panel discussion below:

A special thanks to our storytellers:

Porchea-Londone, Jeremy Horn, Toria Baez, Teddy Matthews, Ashley Lauren.

If you need to talk to someone immediately please visit:

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

or call their hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

ONE WEEK INTENSIVE

We did it friends! In July, we hosted our very first one week intensive, where each day we covered a different topic. Each topic was inspired by the youth in terms of what they wanted to learn. The topics we covered were: Brand Identity, Financial Literacy, Photography, Film, and Social Media. Each workshop was from 10-3pm, creating space for in depth learning and engagement. We are truly so grateful for our friends

who said yes to leading a workshop, as we brought in creatives of color working in their fields. We learned so much, and it was truly a blast getting to learn alongside our youth.

We are so excited to share some behind the scenes with you below:

And here’s the final video that our youth made in collaboration and with the guidance of Jeremy Lopez, our cinematography speaker for the day!