PMSA Mental Health Kit Giveaway

This week, we visited PMSA to hand out more mental health kits. TFD wanted to bring a bright start to the new school year and honor National Suicide Prevention Month this September. The Proviso community has suffered from multiple youth losses due to suicide. Moreover, these kits were inspired to create healthy coping skills for young adults with the intention of promoting mental well-being.

This month is very important for us and the Mental Health Kits. We are so glad to provide 226 kits to PMSA students this Wednesday! Our running total is 2,183 kits given away. Thanks to everyone who stopped by!

Proviso West Freshman Orientation Mental Health Kit Giveaway

We are back and giving away more mental health kits! This week, we visited Proviso West for their Freshman Orientation. Jessica and Maya were so excited to connect with new students and tell them more about the Firehouse Dream! We thought this would be a great opportunity to give out the kits as the freshman entered high school. At this event, we gave away 63 mental health kits! We are excited to see what this school year brings.

Photography at Quinn Center

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!

PWHS Mental Health Kit Giveaway

Last week, we visited Proviso West High School to give away more mental health kits. This time, we were a guest at Proviso West's first annual wellness event, where other organizations were also sharing resources, like the Community Healing Resource Center. The Resource Center works within Chicago to provide workshops to the community that generate healing. While our team handed out mental health kits, Maya and Jasmine filmed more interviews on community healing.

We handed out 321 mental health kits, our biggest giveaway this semester. This was our last giveaway for the school year. This school year, we gave away almost 900 kits. We look forward to next school year!

Black and Brown Art Convening

Our Black and Brown Solidarity Art Convening was a success! Over a hundred people came through and viewed our youth artist’s work. Our youth team, Adlemy, Amaryani, Jazmynn, Neidalis, Milo, and Savannah planned the entire event. Shoutout to them!

We started off our evening with a chance to view the art gallery. We had 14 art submissions, all by youth who live in the Proviso district. Their work ranged from digital art to drawings and photography. Before the presentations, Jazmynn and Amaryani led our guests through an icebreaker. Neighbors, community members, and guests shared their thoughts. Next, we had our spoken word youth, Jermaine from PMSA, present his piece. He talked about what good allyship looks like to continue to respect African American struggles. Then, Milo, Amaryani, Adlemy, and Jermaine, PMSA students, presented their video, which showed a day in the life of the Latina experience and the black experience. After, the youth team did a Q&A so the audience could learn more about the project.

After our presentations, there was more time to explore the space. We had Tacos Regio food truck making Tacos. Our drink table had aqua frescas and lemonade. We also had a table of black and brown cultural desserts from small businesses from the community (Borinken Cakes, Krazy Grapes, Kribi Coffee, Panaderia Pueblo, Sweet Tooth N Company, Yanira and Emilia's Taste of Puerto Rico).

Thank you so much to the youth team who put on this event. Also, we are so grateful for all our guests who came and supported the youth!