Welcome to The Collective

The Collective is a paid 12 weeks (Fall & Spring) or 6 weeks (Summer) creative arts mentorship program where we partner with young adults (Ages 15 to 22) who live in or go to school in Proviso District and teach them creative skills, financial wellness, and mental health.

We focus on 3 pillars:

CREATIVE SKILLS | FINANCIAL WELLNESS | MENTAL HEALTH

CREATIVE SKILLS | We co-design our workshops and training based on the interests of our teens and young adults. Past mentorships have included learning photography, brand identity, film, social media strategy, and more!

FINANCIAL WELLNESS | We believe that teaching creative skills isn’t enough. So we offer training on important yet often overlooked life skills like: How to budget, How to price yourself as a creative, Business planning, Resume building, How to Have a Good Job Interview, and more! We also value normalizing talking about money and recognizing that our experiences with money can impact the way one views ourselves and the world. Our hope is to cultivate spaces where talking about money, budgeting, and more is normalized throughout our program.

MENTAL HEALTH | We believe in the power of our lived experiences and wonder how we can use creativity to amplify the passions and concerns of our mentees and community. Additionally, we value normalizing mental health with our mentees and often talk about what mental health is, do daily high-low check-in. We’ve partnered with mental health experts and creatives to provide workshops on mental health and storytelling such as: Progress over perfection, The Power of our Story, Story Narratives and more! Additionally, we are able to offer group and/or individual sessions in partnership with Yo Soy Ella.

We partner with creatives and professionals who work in

their industry to teach the next generation of creatives

Thank you to all of our past and current partners:

The Latinas RISing up in HR

Chase Bank

Sarah Taylor | Yo Soy Ella

Karina Mora Metts | KARINA MORA

Jasmine Lopez | Authentic Adventure Co.

The Full Story Resumé Writing Services

Lu’Cretia Thomas | Girl Behind The Hustle

Juice Vibe Bar

So So Social

Andre Jamar | Andre Jamar Photography

Stephanie Gill | Financial workshops

Jessica Galvan | Writing workshops

Toria Baez | Yoga and Breathwork

Kathy Khang | Breathwork

Adri de la Cruz | Free Lensing photography

JASON NELSON | Thrivent | FINANCIAL LEADER AND ADVISOR

KEVYN TAPIA | YOUTUBE WORKSHOP

JALEEL ANTHONY | BUSINESS WORKSHOP

amanda leon | Amanda Leon Calligraphy | Calligraphy

MARIAH FRANK | Makeup By Mariah | TIKTOK TUTORIAL

ROSS LASALLE | PHOTOGRAPHY & PROPAGATING WORKSHOP

DELAINA DOSHI | HAND-LETTERING WORKSHOP

ERIKA PEREZ | HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS WORKSHOP

that girl and company

Carlos Arteaga | artclan

rebecca bustamente | Storytelling

Robert Whittley | healthy coin

Carlo Lopez | En Pilsen

Dana Harris | Paint On Purpose

Heather Polk | Art Cures All

Jon & Jordan | Alt Chicago | Community Development

Deon Bonaparte | Agency Evolve | brand Building

Erika & Luna | Oasis Project | Therapy Services

Manny & Abraham | Gente Fina | Building a CLothing Brand

Sandra Garcia | Papelitos Lindos | Grpahic Design

Xochitl Carmona | Werk Mija | Podcasting

Dulce Rodriguez | Procreate

Xochitl & Gabriel | Co-op Ed Center | Restorative Economy

Marquan Jones | Spoken Word

Is The Collective a paid mentorship Program?

Yes, we pay our mentees a stipend equaling to $15 per hour.

Why do you pay your mentees?

At The Firehouse Dream, we know the creative industry is thriving. It is an over $900 billion industry, and yet lacks BIPOC representation in the industry. We long to shift the starving artist narrative, and help parents/caregivers to see the value in their student learning creative skillsets, and that you can in fact be successful and more. It’s also an industry where you can build a career or business without the requirement of a college degree, since it’s network and portfolio based.

How long is the mentorship program:

The Collective consists of 3 sessions.

Summer, Fall and Spring. Our summer session is 6 weeks long, and both our fall and spring sessions are 12 weeks long.

In what other ways do you support your mentees?

After The Collective program we stay connected in many ways:

1. All mentees continue to have access to the creative studio and equipment during open lab hours and more!

2. Equipment can be rented out for personal projects or paid projects.

3. Our goal by 2022, is to pair each mentee who has completed our mentorship with a mentor who actively works in their field of interest and commits to meeting with them monthly for 1 year.

4. Our goal by 2022 is to launch our own in house agency, where our mentees are brought onto our staff to create content and more for community businesses and organizations while getting paid, allowing them to continue to grow and build a solid portfolio in their creative interest.

Why is Jasmine, The Co-founder/ED, so passionate about The Firehouse Dream?

Jasmine is a first generation creative entrepreneur. She knows what it feels like to not have mentors who look like her or understand how her lived experiences impacted her decision making as she was just starting out in building her business. She understands the struggle to financially invest in equipment that’s needed to build a creative business. Her goal is to help mentor and alleviate the cost of investment while first getting started. Along the way she made a lot of mistakes, and wants to partner with the next generation of creatives to know their ideas, stories and more matter and are needed in the creative industry.

Can I really make money in the creative industry?

Yes, absolutely! While we can’t guarantee you’ll make a certain salary, we do know there’s lots of opportunity to build your own creative business or work for a brand. Which ever route you explore we are here to support you.

Here’s some pay rates for certain fields: (we acknowledge that you will need to be skilled and have the experience to be paid these rates, these are just a few examples.)

Assistant Photographer | $20 per hour

2nd Photographer | Starts at $50 per hour

Video editing | Starts at $100 per hour

Social Media Strategy | Starts at $15 per hour

Types of creative businesses you can start:

Here’s a few examples, honestly the sky is the limit: Creative Brand, content creation, hand-lettering, illustrator, clothing line, sticker business, photography studio, video production, podcasting, and so much more!

We are so excited about your interest

In being a part of our mentorship program.

Join our waitlist for our spring 2023 cohort

Who can apply:

Proviso students and residents ages 15-22.*

**We give priority to young adults who live in Maywood and/or attend Proviso East and identify as BIPOC.

**100% of our past mentees identify as BIPOC.

Please feel free to email us at connect@thefirehousedream.org for any questions.

*We only have 10 spots available, and will make our selections based on your application responses and interview.