Mentorship 2.0 | A Panel Discussion

Last week’s mentorship session, Jasmine invited two photographers, Adri and Jamilla, to join our group and share the stories that shaped their careers. Both photographers started by introducing themselves and explaining how they started. Listening to them talk about their stories, the type of work they do, and personal experiences is a reminder that everyone’s creative path is different. They showed their websites and the work they have done; one photographer focused on family portraits, graduation portraits, corporate, and maternity photos. The other focused more on maternity, newborn, and family portraits.

The session ended with an open Q&A, and answered any questions the mentees had. Overall, this mentorship session went over pricing, confidence, networking, and experiences. Bringing in photographers who have walked this path for years was a great opportunity for the mentees to connect. We are grateful to Adri and Jamilla for sharing their time, their stories, and their knowledge.

Mentorship 2.0 | Collaborative Project

For this week’s Mentorship session, our mentees gathered to work on their collective project, a magazine dedicated to Proviso and Maywood. Each mentee is highlighting different things about Proviso. Mya is photographing families, capturing the heart of Proviso through the people of the community. Saffron is photographing local businesses, spotlighting the owners who keep the community moving. Melina is capturing events and highlighting the history, putting together past and present, honoring the stories held in Proviso. Haley is documenting sports, the athletes, teams, and traditions that energize the neighborhood. Ethan is designing the layout of the magazine, bringing every piece together visually, and finalizing the magazine.

The mentees had a quick check-in with Jasmine on their project progress, then moved on to giving each other feedback and updates. We also spent time interviewing the mentees, giving them time to speak about their experience and things that they have learned so far during mentorship. As it gets closer to finalizing their project, the mentees are learning how to collaborate, communicate, and create with purpose.

Mentorship 2.0 | Week 9

Week 9 of Mentorship 2.0 was all about the mentees finalizing their mentorship projects. Jasmine, our Executive Director, has been supporting our mentorship as a Co-lead, and gave creative guidance to the mentees as they helped their visions come together. We want to thank our mentees for their creativity and their great collaborations with each other.

Moving forward, we are excited for the final week coming up next week

Mentorship 2.0 | Week 7

We kicked off our first in-person session of Mentorship 2.0! Our mentees, Adlemy, Mya, Gabi, Keilani, and Saffron learned about systems and workflows. There was brainstorming for what they wanted their projects to look like, what would be the first step, and how that would look to them. The mentees continued to plan what they wanted to do for media day for the following week. We also had each mentee work on poses and have their own headshots taken, along with group photos.

We are excited to see what unfolds next week and what visions come to life, and everyone showing up in their own creative way!

Budgeting 101

Photo Credit: Mariah

After an amazing spring break, our mentees returned this week. We started the first day of week 7 mentorship with an ice breaker asking, “What are two things that make you unique?”. Afterward, we discussed ideas for community projects. During our Summer 2021 mentorship, we had two groups create a community project. This first group project was Conversation Food Desert, where a group of mentees started up a conversation about Maywood being a food desert. The second group project was Maywoodian Families, this group found families in our community and photographed them, along with a series of questions and answers. These projects were shown to our current spring mentees to get inspiration for their community projects.

After our dialogue on community projects, we welcomed Stephanie, a TFD board member, to lead a workshop on how to budget. It was so great to see our mentees engage in a dialogue about financial wellness; one of our three pillars at TFD. Stephanie shared tips & advice on how to understand the process of budgeting, practical budgeting tools, and encouraged budgeting.

As a group, our 8 mentees created a mock college student budget of $2,000 along with a list of expenses. This individual was responsible for: car insurance, gas, textbooks, food, wants, household items, savings, credit card debt, cell phone, rent, and investments. It was amazing to see how invested our mentees were in this workshop. We cannot wait for the next one!

Photo Credit: Mariah