Belief & Leadership

Photo Credit: @amieisfan

On Day 2 of mentorship, we had the opportunity to partner once again with @jaleelanthonytv for a Belief & Leadership workshop. It was so amazing to see how invested and engaged our mentees were. We love to see notebooks being filled up with knowledge learned from creatives we bring into the firehouse. Today, Jaleel discussed what leadership really means. His prompt LEADER helped the mentees reach deeper into their minds. LEADER represents, L- Love, E- Experience, A- Appreciate, D- Discipline, E- Environment, and R- Relationships. Discipline is something Jaleel heavily emphasized. Our mentees took home lots of new information and inspiration. We can’t wait for them to learn more throughout these next 12 weeks.

Photo Credit: @amieisfan

First Mentorship Of 2022!

Photo Credit: Mariah Frank

3...2...1...It's mentorship day! Today we had our first day of spring mentorship! How exciting?! This day was all things paperwork, technology, and guidelines. During the first half of mentorship, we introduced ourselves and shared some fun facts about each other, then we went over guidelines and expectations for our mentees. We filled out some paperwork, and assigned cameras and laptops! This week’s goal was to establish trust and partnership with our mentees. At the end of the day, our mentees shared an impactful story so we can learn a little bit more about them! We can't wait for our 10 mentees to learn all things photography. Stay tuned through our Instagram (@thefirehousedream) to see more behind the scenes and mentorship days live in action!

Photo Credit : Mariah Frank

Mental Health Intensive | Week 2

Photo Credit: Mya Rose

We recently started our Mental Health Intensive at TFD! This is a four week program designed to give access to mental health resources as well as support for the youth within our community. One of our 3 pillars is Mental health and we feel that it is very important to share our stories and normalize the topic of mental health.

The first week of our program was virtual, but this past Wednesday we were able to finally meet in person! Kathy of kathykhang.com led us in breath-work during the first half. During our time with Kathy, we are able to focus on the space and the present moment and clear our minds of unnecessary thoughts. The second half of our day consisted of Erika Aguirre & Erika Luna from Oasis Project teaching different coping skills. We first discussed challenging experiences, our feelings behind them, and how we managed those situations. Afterward, we moved to stations with different objects to help cope with overwhelming feelings of stress. There were things like painting, journaling prompts, play dough, sand, scented lotion or candles, essential oils, and much more. Erika & Luna explained the purpose and benefits of each of these things and allowed each person to try out these out to see what helps!

We can’t wait for the next two weeks! Thank you to our facilitators for coming together to help make this possible.

Photo Credit: Mya Rose

A Trip To ReUse Depot

Don’t you just hate how furniture and building supplies go into landfills? ReUse Depot, a non-profit organization, prevents this from happening by reselling items that would’ve been tossed away (https://reusedepot.org). On day 3 of learning photography, we took a trip to ReUse Depot for the second time. Our mentees got to meet the store cats, look around at all the amazing antiques, and on top of that they got to photograph all of it! Its was an amazing adventure! We can’t wait to come back!

We also learned some history at ReUse Depot…the Firetruck (pictured below) was a World war II Firetruck that was then donated to Maywood. At some point between the years 1943-1980’s this very truck was Maywood’s official Firetruck, meaning it was in our Firehouse! How cool is that?!

Sony Film Project Is Live!

We are so excited to share our Sony Create Action Film is live!

In Oct. 2021, we were selected to be the grant recipients of The Create Action Grant Program in which we were given $50,000 in cash to continue and expand our work, this Sony-produced short film sharing our story and $50,000 in Sony Electronics products to support our action plan. Jake from Sony Alpha came to the firehouse last month to film TFD during our mentorship program.

Over the past year, TFD has put in so much work and has grown tremendously. It is truly amazing to see it all come together the way it has and to be selected for this grant. Now being in partnership with Sony, we have even more opportunity to provide our young adults with access to the latest tech and equipment.

We are so excited to see what the future brings for TFD and how we can grow and expand to reach even more creative young adults of color.

In case you are interested in learning more, the Create Action Grant Program is open through March 29, 2022 and will provide grants to 10 different organizations total, with one new grant awarded each month.

To learn more go to: alphauniverse.com/createaction.