Art Forward
OUR MISSION: To beautify our public spaces and engage our residents through public art, art education, and intercommunity collaboration in the Chicago neighborhoods of North Lawndale, South Lawndale and Garfield.
Art Forward is an initiative of Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago in partnership with Family Focus. Art Forward’s goal is a collaborative effort of these neighborhood organizations with support from LAN 67 and Lawndale Christian Development Corporation to reinvent the physical space of our neighborhoods by introducing community-created mural paintings through their responsiveness and art engagement. Fifteen (15) host sites- neighborhood organizations, project staff and volunteer teaching artist are creating murals alongside youth and community residents. The art produced will blanket the boards used to secure vacant properties in the designated areas. Art Forward will build upon this experience in working with the African Amercan Heritage Quilting Project.
In addition Art Forward will
- Raise self-motivation, community pride, and intergenerational collaboration
- Enhance sense of safety and control over block condition
For further information, visit http://artforward.org/
The Better Boys Foundation
It has been the mission of Better Boys Foundation (BBF) since its founding in 1961 to improve the quality of life for North Lawndale area youth and their families by providing experiences that enhance their emotional, social, academic, and career development.
Serving some 800 children and youth (more than half of whom are now girls) each year, BBF concentrates its efforts in three major areas:
- Crisis Intervention and Youth/Family Counseling
- Out-of-School Time Programming
- Scholarships and Career Guidance Assistance
Together, these programs provide a scaffold within which children and youth ages five to 21 years can grow, flourish and ultimately succeed outside of the supporting structure we provide—in school, in their careers and in their personal lives.
We welcome you to our website and invite you to read more about our work. You will find in these pages information about our history, our programs and the young people we serve. Thank you for visiting, and please visit our site often to learn more about what BBF is doing to improve the lives of boys and girls in North Lawndale. Click here to download a copy of our brochure.
Historic K-Town
K-Town – named for its many north-south “K” streets including Karlov, Keeler and Kildare – covers Pulaski on the east to Kostner on the west and from Cermak on the south and Cullerton on the north. K-Town boasts a unique mix of Chicago residential and commercial buildings, including one of the largest concentrations of Greystones in North Lawndale.
Prevention Force Family Center
Prevention Force Family Center (PFFC) is a not-for-profit community based organization established in 1996. PFFC’s mission is to provide educational, youth, entrepreneurial, and job readiness training programs and services that help low-income individuals, youth, and families become self-sufficient, responsible, and productive residents of the community.PFFC has four objectives: 1) To develop and implement programs and resource/referral services to community residents who live in underserved communities;2) To develop entrepreneurial training programs for youth and individuals who live in low income communities.3) To collaborate with schools, youth organizations, churches, community groups and businesses on providing comprehensive programs and social services to low income families who live in underserved communities; and4) To conduct business workshops and seminars and to provide technical assistance services that will assist the entrepreneurs, businesses and grassroots organizations with the necessary tools to make their businesses successful.Geographic areas served:
Austin, North Lawndale, East and West Garfield communities in Chicago IL
Sankofa Safe Child Initiative
To provide supportive services, referrals, resources & skills that encourages underserved families and communities to be strong, self-sufficient and remain intact.
Since 1999, Sankofa Safe Child Initiative opened its doors to reduce the numbers of families involved in the child welfare and/or juvenile justice systems. We provide supportive services to help preserve, stabilize, reunify, and keep families intact by meeting families where they are, help them look back to identify their strengths and move forward to self-sustainability.
URBAN ART RETREAT (U.A.R.) encourages people to learn from each other’s differences while overlapping our similarities through examining issues of violence and inequity in our society. To accomplish this task, U.A.R. offers safe, violence-free space (retreat) where people who do and do not define themselves as artists can share their visions and processes in both art and in daily living as interrelated.
Through programming and events, U.A.R. encourages people to examine how racism, sexism, homophobia effect our lives and how addressing these issues can be a basis for change within our communities. U.A.R. believes that art can be a vehicle for change and that artists serve as community leaders. Therefore, U.A.R. conceptualizes art as inherently political and is firmly committed to utilizing art as a tool toward eliminating oppression.
U.A.R. events, exhibits, and programs are open to being multicultural, providing exposure for art by under represented cultures and communities. U.A.R. does not knowingly permit actions or representations of racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, classism, and abelism within our exhibition or performance spaces, or during any U.A.R. event or activity. Members and volunteers of URBAN ART RETREAT are encouraged to continually educate ourselves to avoid unintentionally permitting such actions or representations to occur.
Our events and programs include artists who identify their work as overtly political, artists who do not identify their work as political, and people who do not identify as artists.
UAR came into existence in the early 1980′s in Portland,Oregon. Over the years, we have provided many programs and events to a wide range of people. While our doors are always open to the public, we have geared many of our projects toward specific populations, such as women, people of color, youths, people with disabilities, artists, activists, survivors of trauma, lesbians, etc.
Since moving to Chicago in 1991, UAR and Chicago Women’s Residence have been offering programming at a variety of sites. Well, we’ve finally found a home! Our headquarters at 1957 S. Spaulding Ave is now open and we feel ready to settle down and settle in.
We like for people around us to appreciate diversity. Urban Art Retreat was created to provide an environment of tolerance and acceptance for everyone and we invite you to join us!
Visit www.urbanartretreat.com for further information.
