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
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!
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
Carlo from En Pilsen led a workshop with our Mentees on how to become closer to your community. He explained to our mentees how important community is and shared ways to become closer to your neighbors. Using local hashtags on Instagram and other social media platforms can connect you to other people within your neighborhood. In Pilsen, Carlo began a clean up and restoration at a community garden to allow neighbors to connect and become closer to their community, which similar to what we have in Maywood. You can find out more about the work that Carlo is doing within in Pilsen on Instagram.
Photo Credit: Mariah
Everyone knows of someone who owns their own brand but have you ever thought about how they formed it? We just started our fifth week of mentorship that all about branding. Our board President Deon Bonaparte of Agency Evolve, led his 4th workshop with TFD on “How To Build A Brand".” Deon went over the steps on how to build your brand with three steps: build the foundation, brand strategy, and a business plan. The most important information that our mentees learned was to clearly articulate what they want their brand to be, look like, and feel. Deon left the mentees with a quote from Walt Disney. “Walt Disney was asked, “How do you feel on your deathbed knowing that you will not be able to see Disney world come to life?” Walt Disney replied “I already have”. You need to understand your brand before you start it.” We are so appreciative of our Board president and cannot wait to welcome him back during our Summer mentorship!
Photo Credit: Mariah
