MARCH FOOD DISTRIBUTION

Today our interns were able to put into practice all that they’ve been learning so far. Photography and social media! Knowing these 2 skills is vital in today’s society…especially when it comes to building one’s brand. Today we partnered with our food coalition to document our monthly food distribution.

I can’t believe today was our one year anniversary since we started this food coalition, and to date we’ve been able to provide over 30k meals to our neighbors. How amazing is that?!?

Check out some behind the scenes of our interns in action:

The gallery below are photos taken by Ross one of our interns. He also edited them in Lightroom. It’s amazing to see all of the growth our interns are already experiencing!

BRAND POSITIONING WORKSHOP

Today our friend and board member, Deon, led us through a workshop called Brand Positioning. It was an amazing workshop where our interns got to hear from someone who owns a Brand Agency, and to hear his thoughts on what it means to position our brands in a way that stands out!

Thanks so much Deon for leading us through your workshop!

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!