Our grant recipients and their participants were at the heart of our mission. While our focus became exclusively on CoGen projects, we were very proud of the projects described below that Innovation 80 funded prior to CoGen, in some cases involving organizations who had become CoGen grantees. Here were some of the comments that were made about our past grantee’s programs:
““The communication and openness to ideas from the whole Innovation 80 team is a breath of fresh air.””
“The single most unique aspect of Innovation 80 is their enthusiasm for and investment in new ideas. Innovation 80 is a builder of programming and, as their name implies, a true advocate for innovative programming.”
“Innovation 80 has been a constant source of inspiration to the ChiArts Foundation… They bring a sense of excitement and fun to changing things in the Chicago art community for the better.”
“They are a one-of-a-kind fund. Innovation 80 is in regular contact with its grantees, finding creative ways to strengthen the grantor-grantee relationship that goes well beyond financial support.”
CoGen Grantees
AMERICAN INDIAN CENTER
American Indian Center designed four distinct intergenerational programs, where elders and youth collaborated through cross-mentorship. In the Regalia Making Workshops, elders taught traditional crafting techniques, while youth introduced digital design tools to enhance creativity. The Dance Workshops combined traditional dance instruction from elders with modern dance elements guided by youth. In both Traditional Medicine Workshops and Singing and Drumming Workshops youth facilitated in digital recording and preservation of cultural elements the elders passed down. Each workshop fostered cultural continuity and community resilience.
ARCHITREASURES
Architreasures expanded the Our Homes program which launched in 2024 through the support of Innovation 80. Our Homes is an art and oral history project that uplifts past and present stories of the Altgeld Gardens housing community. The project connected young people ages 16-24 with seniors from Altgeld to capture community stories through oral history collection and photography. The goal was to further pride in community members and to foster meaningful relationships across generations.
ART ENCOUNTER
Art Encounter programs bring people together to share ideas, experiences, and viewpoints through discussing and making art. Innovation 80 supported Linking Generations, a program that partnered with Family Matters, a social service agency, to join youth and seniors living in an area of Rogers Park where 97% of elementary school youth are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. In the series of eight weekly workshops student / senior pairs learned art concepts and interviewed each other to share life experiences, promoting understanding and respect across the generations. Each pair created a multi-media shadowbox to reflect some connection they found—a shared interest, a value, a dream. At the culminating reception with family, friends, and community, participants reflected on their experience in this program and celebrated their artistic creations.
ART OF GIVING
The Art of Giving Foundation's “Stories of Our Lives” brought together a group of 8 eighth - twelfth grade students with 8 seniors for an intensive two-week program using the power of music and creativity through the medium of cabaret. Sessions built bridges between the generations by sharing and merging the stories and experiences of teens and elders and, using the Great American Song Book, culminated in a collaborative cabaret performance by the participants. The cabaret format showcased the comedic and lighthearted aspects of life, as well as experiences that transcend age and time. This project fostered meaningful connections and mutual understanding across the generations.
ART On Sedgwick
Art on Sedgwick’s Strands of Wisdom, a multi-generational sewing program, fostered cross-mentorship between teens and adults from the Marshall Field Garden Apartments, bridging racial, economic, and generational divides. Running for 26 weeks in 2025, the program paired teens with elders in creative collaborations, allowing them to share skills and perspectives while building meaningful connections. Through hands-on projects and discussions on wisdom themes such as confidence, humility, and discipline, participants strengthened community ties. Each session culminated in a joint art exhibit at the Art on Sedgwick Gallery, showcasing their collaborative efforts.
Awakenings
Awakenings Co-Generational arts-based program served sexual violence survivors, a multiply disadvantaged population facing significant barriers to long-term healing resources. The journey of reclaiming voice, rebuilding trust, and ongoing healing transcended age. As they created art together, older participants mentored younger participants by sharing long-term healing strategies developed over decades, modeling that healing was a lifelong process. Younger participants mentored older participants by introducing contemporary frameworks for understanding trauma, community-building strategies, and offering fresh perspectives on boundary-setting, breaking silence and challenging stigma. Stipends made participation possible regardless of financial considerations.
BandWith
BandWith Chicago’s Step & Sing was an intergenerational choral program that brought together ten youth and ten older adults to share music, movement, and cultural storytelling. The program fostered meaningful intergenerational relationships through collaborative music-making. As reciprocal mentors, seniors shared lived history and traditions, while youth introduced contemporary musical trends and digital tools. High-quality music education promoted wellness, creative expression, and pride in cultural heritage. Each of two sessions (15 weeks in spring, 12 weeks in fall), culminated in a public concert.
Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble
Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble had always wanted the opportunity to create a dedicated program that helped bridge the gap between our younger and older artists. Our Passages cohort consisted of 15 seasoned artists 65 and older, and 15 artists 20 to 25 years old who were beginning their careers in dance, theater/storytelling, photography, visual art, or music. The program created cross-disciplinary pairs of visual and performance artists, as well as artists at different stages in their careers. Pairs collaborated on a piece of art that illustrated a moment in a “rite of passage” that helped them get where they were in their life or career. Each pair met at least 10 times, in addition to participating in 3 full group meetings to work, discuss and create their art. CDE presented a culminating event, featuring an art gallery and performances.
Chicago Sukkah Design Festival
Innovation 80 had supported the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival since its inception four years prior. The 2025 program paired 5 North Lawndale community organizations with 5 architect / designers; each team designed and built a sukkah (an outdoor room for the Jewish harvest festival Sukkot). Participants gained "design literacy"; each organization owned and repurposed its sukkah for use in its mission. All sukkah design teams stimulated cogenerational creativity, but that year two teams were dedicated as CoGen sukkahs.
Chicago West Community Music Center
Chicago West Community Music Center’s program, Reimagining Jazz music – A Sound for All Ages, was a 10-week program that paired ten young music students and ten older members of their Westside community to explore how the vital art form of Jazz music reflects the human experience. Its influence spanned generations and cultures, shaping fashion trends, dance, and societal movements. Each pair brought their own individual perspectives and experiences as they reimagined a creative variation of songs by their favorite artists. As each pair developed a concept of the Jazz genre and exchanged experiences, they formed meaningful relationships that connected their generations through the music. The program concluded with a workshop in which the reimagined pieces were performed for the community.
Free Street Theatre
This 8-week storytelling program from Free Street Theatre, Neighbor Stories, focused on bringing together two generations in Back of the Yards & surrounding areas to discuss the stories, histories, experiences and understandings of their neighborhood. In collaboration with Peace & Education Coalition, 10-16 participants (five to eight over 55-year-olds, and five to eight under 25-year-olds) met weekly for 2 to 3 hours to learn the art of storytelling, sharing their lived experiences in Back of the Yards. The program was bi-lingual, offered in Spanish and English, bringing together both Latine and Black community members from across the area. Participants received a stipend to ensure retention and strong attendance throughout the program. FST provided snacks at meetings and a meal at the final storytelling event, adding to the celebration of community stories.
FreshLens Chicago
FreshLens’ CoGen program was a 7-week project-based class for photography students that paired retired adults with high school students. Through interviewing each other, pairs discovered common interests which led to their designing and developing a photography project together. Beyond the class itself, this program was meant to foster a co-generational, mutual learning relationship and produce a space for intergenerational collaboration. This represented a mini step to combat the pervasive issue of ageism.
See freshlenschicago.org/cogen-showcase for detailed creative results of these pairings.
Igniting Minds
Igniting Minds’ program, Seasoned: a Culinary Art CoGen Program, was a hands-on cooking program that brought together older adults and youth in a structured, welcoming space to build community and connection across generations. Participants met for two hours per week over 10 weeks. Each session they practiced basic cooking skills as they prepared and enjoyed a meal together. Over the course of the program they explored a range of cuisines and built connections as a group. They served 40 participants over two cycles—one in the fall; one in the spring.
Green Star Movement
Innovation 80 funded the “Intergenerational Art Expression Project” with Green Star Movement (GSM), an organization with whom I 80 had been working for several years. GSM used mosaic public art to build teamwork, tell stories, and beautify shared space to revitalize diverse urban communities, guided by resident and business needs.
GSM’s CoGen project brought together youth and older adults from Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly (LBFE), an organization providing friendship to older adults who no longer had friends or family to rely on. GSM teaching artists led 24 monthly sessions of youth and older adults in a mosaic-making project. GSM also used virtual methodology (DIY home-kits) to engage homebound elders. The project created two mosaics--one for the LBFE facade, one in a neighborhood on Chicago's southwest side. Besides creating meaningful and lasting pieces of art, this program offered a safe space for elders and youth to share stories and connect. Through this co-generational focus, GSM and I 80 continued their commitment to engage marginalized, under-represented communities in the arts, enhancing quality of life for both seniors and youth.
Inheritance Theater Project
Inheritance Theater Project (ITP) created art in and with communities, building relationships across divides by inviting community members to co-create original theater.
Through Summer 2025, ITP focused on strengthening relationships between siloed communities on the south and west sides of Chicago. A group of local artists hired by ITP along with ITP national team members, sparked conversations based on First Amendment issues (Freedoms of Religion, Assembly, Speech, etc.) to better understand and honor the multiplicity of stories that existed among neighbors. By bringing together local artists, activists, civic and religious leaders, and community members from across Chicago's south and west sides, ITP invited everyone's voice into the playmaking process. The resulting play was performed, free of charge, for audiences at local Chicago venues early in 2026.
Innovation 80 served as Catalyst for ITP in developing this Chicago Project.
Jackalope Theatre
Jackalope Theater Company put youth and seniors in the Edgewater community together for a ten-week (20-session) program designed for participants to create theater pieces based on local current events newspaper articles. In the past, as an Arts Partner in Residence with the Chicago Park District, JTC had run separate classes for each age cohort but did not have funding to pilot a CoGen Living Newspaper class. In the CoGen program, teaching artists led discussions and exercises to enhance communication and connections across generations and wove these into a short play that was performed for the community. The program was offered for free to all.
Lawndale Pop-Up Spot
The Reimagining 16th Street initiative from Lawndale Pop-Up Spot brought together youth, seniors, and others in North Lawndale to co-create art that reflected the community’s past, present, and future. Through a series of 16 intergenerational workshops, participants collaborated on posters, design exhibits, storytelling, and a large sculpture, fostering connections between different generations. These art pieces were revealed at the Reimagining 16th Street Festival in October, where both young and old shared their creative visions and stories. They were installed in November along with three sukkahs from the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival. The program emphasized a process that broke down barriers and built co-generational connections through shared artistic expression and dialogue.
The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project
The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project was designed to promote well-being among LGBTQ+ people by bringing together older and younger LGBTQ+ adults for two semesters of storytelling, dialogue, and art making. The project connected diverse cohorts of LGBTQ+ participants who would not otherwise have had a chance to interact, providing them with space, time, and support to learn to engage with each other across their differences.
During the spring semester participants worked in small intergenerational groups to develop art skills, and imagine, plan, coordinate and create a collaborative art piece. A public art exhibition showcased the work. Through this process, participants—both younger and older—developed deeper understandings of themselves and each other as artists, makers, thinkers, and community members.
In the magical space of art making and dialogue, relationships flourished. Previously, data was being systematically analyzed to determine the impact of this program.
Lifting Hearts with the Arts
Lifting Hearts with the Arts, a 501(c)(3) organization formed by high school students, developed two CoGen programs that Innovation 80 was proud to fund.
"CoGen Creations" was designed to facilitate intergenerational learning through art-making, encouraging open communication to counteract stereotypes and increase understanding between generations. Based on mutual interests, high school students were paired with residents in senior care facilities. Pairs got to know each other by engaging in dialogue, expressing themselves through different mediums. Each pair created a final art piece and brief statement for display, along with photos of the artist pairs. The hope was for participants to build long-lasting, intergenerational friendships that would counteract ageist stereotypes and enrich their lives.
"Multigen Modules" used art to facilitate conversations between youth volunteers and senior residents of Chicago care facilities to explore and delineate best practices of intergenerational work. Volunteers supplemented their understanding by interviewing care facility staff, and other experts in the field of aging, then co-created storyboards for 1 or 2 short informational videos to convey their collective findings. Youth volunteers then digitally animated the storyboards and tested their clarity and effectiveness as teaching modules. The modules were available to senior care facilities to help them efficiently onboard prospective volunteers, providing information about how to work collaboratively with seniors. The aim was to broaden intergenerational understanding and foster meaningful relationships across generations.
Mandala
Mandala launched an intergenerational drumming circle for a mutual exchange between young musicians and the elderly residents in the ethnically and culturally diverse neighborhood of Rogers Park. A group of 30-32 seniors, over the age of 55, worked with eight musicians in their early 20's. The program's weekly 90-minute sessions met for 36 weeks. In addition to collective drumming exercises, participants broke into smaller groups for focused exchanges around cultural and professional experiences. Each quarter concluded with an open recital.
Mobile Makers
Mobile Makers Chicago’s Intergenerational Design-Build Program emphasized collaborative community transformation. It united approximately 10 youth and 10 elders for three-hour weekly sessions over a six-week spring program to address local needs in the North Lawndale neighborhood. Working in partnership with Stone Temple Baptist Church, the cohort focused on positive interventions regarding land use, sustainability, and community preservation, while forging meaningful cross-generational bonds. Participants engaged in design workshops utilizing mapping, collage, and model building, followed by hands-on construction to convert a shipping container on a vacant lot. The final outcome was a renovated garden sanctuary and rest area that provided essential resources, serving as a permanent source of pride for the community.
Once Upon Our Time Capsule
Once Upon Our Time Capsule's CoGen program reimagined the tradition of a time capsule to engage children (9-17 years old) and seniors (over 60) from the Austin community in sharing their stories and perspectives on 2025's capsule topic, “Journeys”. With support from Innovation 80, the stories and artwork they created, reflecting the many journeys in their lives, was saved in a virtual time capsule that was closed at year end and will be re-opened in ten years to provide a window on history. In addition to fostering their sense of self-worth, belonging, and empathy, the program encouraged participants to appreciate experiences and perspectives of another generation and to build meaningful cross-generational relationships.
Public Media Institute
Public Media Institute's project, Lumpen Radio, emphasized co-mentorship. It paired 10 elders and 10 youth for ten hours a week in a six-week summer program to share experiences of their neighborhoods on Chicago's Southwest Side. Participant pairs focused their personal stories on cultural, communal and social justice issues and changes, while building intergenerational relationships that would continue beyond the program. Participants collected each other's oral histories, explored new and archival media content, learned storytelling and sound bed techniques, and collaborated to craft a series of 5- to 7-minute audio “creative essay” pieces, capturing their neighborhood's unique character and their generational perspectives. Lumpen Radio broadcasted these pieces along with follow-up conversations. The final outcome was a 2-hour series of 10 high quality radio segments, a lasting legacy.
Red Line Service
Red Line Service was the only art organization in Chicago led by people who had a lived experience of houselessness. Red Line Service utilized the arts to foster a sense of community, inclusivity, and mutual support for people experiencing houselessness or housing insecurity. Innovation 80 supported A Space of Symbiosis which took place in North Lawndale and focused on fiber arts with participants. Here, older and younger housing insecure or unhoused community members came together in an intensive 12-week summer program to foster mutual connections as they worked collaboratively to create art in and for the garden. While younger participants received nurturing and care, older adults deepened their sense of self agency, sense of purpose and, together, all participants created a deep community of care.
Room for Light
Room for Light’s program Entre Generaciones partnered with BlueCross BlueDoor Neighborhood Center to raise mental health awareness and reduce stigma within the Latinx community through storytelling and live performances. Latinx seniors and youth were paired to share personal stories, fostering empathy and understanding across generations. Mental health challenges within Latinx culture were openly discussed, creating a safe space for dialogue. Select stories were featured on illuminated lightboxes and debuted at a live theatrical performance during Latin Heritage Month. The event also included a public discussion on mental health and intergenerational connections, promoting community support and collaboration.
The Simple Good
The Simple Good (TSG) explores the meaning of “good” through art and discussion. In 2023, Innovation 80's funding allowed TSG to extend its program to first graders. In 2024, through CoGen, Innovation 80 helped TSG inaugurate a pilot program to expand the concept of “the simple good” to senior citizens, partnering with Catalyst Circle Rock Elementary School and a nearby senior center to create a cogenerational Simple Good program.
South Chicago Dance Theatre
The Dancing Across Generations Project encouraged older adults (ages 65+) and teens (ages 14-18) to explore and share their own family histories and stories with each other through dance. South Chicago Dance Theatre (SCDT) partnered with RUSH Hospital in Chicago to engage senior citizen participants and Chicago public high schools to select younger participants. In summer, 2025, over the course of ten weeks, SCDT professional dance artists led youngers and olders in free weekly workshops to share life experiences, develop an artistic practice through dance making and collaborate across generations on pieces of choreography. The program culminated in a sharing at the Dance Center at Columbia College.
2023 Grantees
Awakenings
Awakenings uses the arts to engage and promote healing in survivors of sexual violence. Participants have found that, in the setting of art classes, the sharing of experiences and understandings has enhanced their abilities to process, claim their own voices and move forward from trauma. In the Awakenings/Innovation 80 Healing Arts Program participants will make art together over a 6-month period.
* Awakenings also has a current CoGen program funded by I 80
Bandwith
BandWith provides exceptional music programs to the underserved community of East Garfield Park. Its Innovation 80 project will begin a choral program, focusing on instruction and performance to build on the pilot the organization conducted last summer. BandWith partners with Chicago West Music, an Innovation 80 2022 grantee that draws participants from a wider geographic area.
Chicago Arts and Music Project
Chicago Arts and Music Project (CAMP) will expand its string instrument program, which has been engaging 3rd to 5th graders in underserved Chicago schools. Their advanced students have had difficulty competing against others their age who were able to begin lessons earlier. The Innovation 80 Project, Fiddlesticks, will be a Suzuki string program for 1st and 2nd graders.
Chicago Mobile Makers
Chicago Mobile Makers seeks to open the field of architecture to youth of color. Its design workshops encourage disadvantaged youth (ages 8 to 18) to become change-makers in their own communities and build life-long design skills. The Innovation 80 project, Design for Change, will be an after-school program in Humboldt Park for middle- and high-school-aged students.
Chicago Poetry Center
Chicago Poetry Center operates through Chicago Public Schools to connect people with poetry, poets with communities, and foster creativity and reflection. The Innovation 80 Early Reader Pilot Program will serve two schools in the underserved communities of Bronzeville and Bedford Park to develop a curriculum that will engage pre-readers with poetry.
FreshLens Chicago
FreshLens teaches life skills through photography to teens from underserved communities. FreshLens students’ photographs now adorn Innovation 80’s website pages. FreshLens also runs an advanced course in event photography, which Innovation 80 supports by funding graduates to photograph events held by other Innovation 80 grantees who wish to take advantage of this offer.
Lawndale Pop-Up Spot
Lawndale Pop-Up Spot features a community museum housed in a shipping container, intended as a spark to revitalize North Lawndale. Its Innovation 80 project [Your Exhibit Here] will demonstrate the impact local museums can have on their communities by teaching a group of local youth museum curation principles and, with community involvement, creating an exhibition.
Palenque LSNA
Palenque LSNA serves Northwest side neighborhoods using Latinx and immigrant traditions in arts, culture, and design to reconnect its Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Immigrant communities in the face of rapid gentrification and displacement. Innovation 80 is helping to fund three mosaics by Greenstar Movement in and around Logan Square that will foster pride and belonging for these communities.
The Simple Good
The Simple Good explores the meaning of “good” through art and discussion. Working with grades 3 to 12 in Chicago Public Schools, it aims to empower youth to bring positivity into their communities. The project with Innovation 80 inaugurates a pilot program to expand the concept of “the simple good” to younger children, developing a curriculum to engage first graders.
Sukkah Design Festival
The Sukkah Design Festival pairs three North Lawndale community organizations with three architect / designers, each team to design and build an innovative sukkah (an outdoor room erected for the Jewish harvest festival Sukkot). Participants gain "design literacy," a sense of how spaces can be purposefully created. Each organization will own and repurpose its sukkah to use in its mission.
2022 Grantees
Artists Breaking Limits and Expectations
ABLE (Artist Breaking Limits and Expectations) uses theater to engage people who have intellectual or developmental disabilities. The organization has had a wait list for participants and their project will start “In the Wings” that will give those on the waitlist an introduction and chance to begin learning before there are openings in the company program.
America Scores Chicago
America Scores Chicago will extend their program, Literacy in Action, into summer. They teach poetry and soccer to ages K through 8th grade. They have writing coaches and soccer coaches and Innovation 80’s grant will fund a teaching artist to help the children turn their poetry (including hip hop) into some form of visual art.
Albany Park Theater Project
APTP (Albany Park Theater Project) trains youth from Albany Park to create professional-quality plays with themes relevant to their lives. Two years of interviews of local residents will inform a production that explores immigration experiences. Actors will interact with audiences through four apartments (stages) created in a warehouse.
Chicago West Community Music Center
CWCMC (Chicago West Community Music Center) is one of our few minority-led organizations. They are committed to providing high quality music education. Their string instruction has included piano and harp and they have taken their orchestra to perform abroad. Innovation 80’s grant will fund a pilot “Laptop Orchestra” program to teach making music by computers.
* CWCMC also has a current CoGen program that I 80 is funding
Free Street Theater
Free Street Theater has two centers 57 blocks apart on Ashland Ave: one in Pulaski Park and one in Back of the Yards. Online this year, the two collaborated. “57 Blocks” will continue this collaboration, performing on a bus they are acquiring that will travel between the centers, bringing theater to audiences in these neighborhoods.
Global Girls
Global Girls Inc. brings programs that engage students in stories, dance and singing for females of color, ages 5 to 18. Innovation 80 will fund a pilot program, “My First Show,” which will engage very young children in five South Side daycare centers. The focus is on developing self-confidence, the ability to present before an audience, and pride in who they are.
Intonation Music
Intonation Music partners with 6 public schools in Bronzeville, grades 3-12, with programs year-round. Curriculum includes pop music and digital music making. Their instructor to student ratio is 1:6 and students play in 12-person bands. The Innovation 80 grant will allow them to expand into two more schools.
Music in Urban Schools Inspiring Change
MUSIC (Music in Urban Schools Inspiring Change) will partner with a local church in North Lawndale, which will provide space for a new Suzuki violin program for 6- to 8-year olds. MUSIC just finished its 5-year term supported by Springboard, which helps grow small start-ups engaging underserved populations. Innovation 80 partners with Springboard.
Snow City Arts
Snow City Arts brings arts to children in hospitals (and back at home if they cannot yet go back to school upon discharge). Innovation 80’s support will allow them to provide this service for the pediatric and burns units at Cook County Hospital, which has recognized the need and has asked Snow City to provide.
Theatre Y
Theatre Y is an innovative theatre company in process of moving into North Lawndale, with plans to build a community center for the arts there. Innovation 80 will fund a pilot puppetry program designed by a nationally-known puppeteer and led by a local community organizer. It will engage local youth for a high-quality production.
2021 Grantees
Changing Worlds
Changing Worlds brings high-quality music programing to Ashe Elementary, an under-resourced CPS school on Chicago’s West Side. Innovation 80 funding will allow Changing Worlds to expand its model to reach deeper and broader by including grades 3 through 5, giving its students an uninterrupted K-8 music curriculum. The school’s principal has requested this expansion and has championed this program. Changing Worlds also offers summer and out-of-school opportunities for upper-grade students, and family online workshops to engage parents.
Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble
Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble uses a wide variety of arts—visual arts, dance, theatre and music—to engage participants. Innovation 80’s grant is for Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble to develop a comprehensive curriculum for early childhood, ages 3-7, from PreK through 1st grade. The program’s goal is to determine what concepts and skills can be taught at each age level and to develop the tools which will prepare teaching artists to teach all arts. The curriculum will foster an early appreciation for the arts, with a focus on social/emotional learning, reading and literacy.
* Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble also has a current CoGen program
CircEsteem
CircEsteem serves youths across all backgrounds and identities, fostering self-esteem and mutual respect through the practice and performance of circus arts. CircEsteem also provides tutors to help participants with homework and has a stellar graduation rate. The program creates opportunities for youth to find commonalities, to experience their resilience, and to reimagine the role youth can play in affecting social change and in shaping the future of Chicago. The Innovation 80 Grant will expand this program to Hefferan Elementary an under-served CPS school on the West Side of Chicago.
Green Star Movement
Green Star Movement works with an inter-generational population—youth, adults and communities—to design and realize public art. Its mission is to build teamwork, self-esteem, and civic engagement while fostering a sense of identity and revitalizing urban neighborhoods. Through the mosaic murals they create, participants connect to each other and experience ownership of public spaces. Innovation 80 funding will support the design and execution of a mural by an inter-generational group of participants in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood.
Ignition Community Glass
Ignition Community Glass uses the transformative power of glass arts to help youth from under-resourced communities in Chicago develop life skills. It provides a safe environment for students to experiment while learning the basics of this art form. Its programs foster self-esteem, self-confidence, and resilience, and emphasize the importance of communication and trust as participants work together in pairs and groups. ICG will collaborate with Storycatchers Theatre to run an 8-week summer course for Storycatchers participants, who will collectively create a glass quilt mural to be installed at the Storycatchers facility.
ReinventAbility
ReinventAbility improves the lives of people with disabilities by promoting and facilitating engagement and inclusion. Its programs expand the horizons of dance to include disabled individuals and their families, as fully engaged audience members, in classes, and onstage. Innovation 80’s grant will fund development of Dancing With Disability, a program for grades K - 12 for South and West Side Chicago schools. Dance participation serves to dispel negative attitudes that limit opportunities of people with disabilities. It aims to increase public understanding, acceptance and inclusion.
SitStayRead
SitStayRead advances children’s literacy skills in under-served communities by connecting children in grades K-3 with trained literacy volunteers and Certified Reading Assistance Dogs. Its curriculum develops reading and writing skills and an appreciation of and connection with animals. By bringing non-judgmental dogs and supportive volunteers into classrooms the program transforms the learning environment. Innovation 80’s funding will create packets that include books (in English and Spanish) and supplies for children to use during the Covid-19 period and beyond.
StoryCatchers
Storycatchers has used a trauma-informed methodology to create Changing Voices, an 8-month performing arts jobs program for youth, ages 17-24, recently released from detention. Changing Voices combines artistic expression with social-emotional learning to prepare youth for successful re-entry. Working one-on-one with teaching artists, youth author their personal stories, share them in small peer groups and then learn basic skills of musical performance, choreography, and show-writing, collaborating to weave their collective experiences into a work of musical theater. Storycatchers has developed programs in partnership with two other Innovation 80 grantees--Ignition Community Glass and Green Star Movement--to further enrich the experiences of their Changing Voices youth.
West Point School of Music
West Point School of Music is a Black-led and Black-serving organization whose mission is to engage low-income, urban youth through music instruction and performance, cultivating artistically connected, socially conscious, and productive adults. Its performances make high quality, culturally diverse music accessible to all. Innovation 80 will fund the School’s steel drum program, which provides education and training, jobs and community development in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. The project includes its steel drum repair and manufacturing operation.
2020 Grantees
The Kedzie Center & 2nd Story
The Kedzie Center, in collaboration with 2nd Story, will create, and Innovation 80 will fund, the Diane Plotkin DACA Storytelling Program for three groups of students who identify as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) in the River North area. Students will be offered opportunities to tell their personal stories in an empowering and healing way and to deliver them for impact. The program will foster inter-group sharing and will culminate in a performance of a number of pieces from each cohort, reaching at least 100 community members.
Reading Between the Lines
Reading Between the Lines uses discussion of literature to build critical thinking and communication skills with soon-to-be released and formerly incarcerated women and men. The exchange of ideas around short, powerful texts promotes confidence, collaboration, openness and trust, offering participants tools to engage with the world in new ways. Innovation 80 is funding activities that will prepare Reading Between the Lines to deliver their program inside the Cook County jail. This project has already received official approval from CCDOC.
Silk Road Rising
Silk Road Rising’s EPIC (Empathic Playwriting Intensive Course) program, has guided students in Chicago public schools in writing short plays that promote empathy around issues they see in their own communities. Innovation 80 is providing funding for Silk Road Rising to expand EPIC’s focus to guide other participants who are traditionally underserved to tell parts of their own stories. New target populations will be inter-generational groups, people with developmental or intellectual disabilities, and English language learners in the West Ridge neighborhood of Chicago.
SkyArt
SkyART, after 18 years of proven community engagement and youth development through free art programs in South Chicago, will begin to bring its program to young people on the West Side, aided by funding from Innovation 80. This year-long program for high school-aged young adults develops art as a pathway to their future. It offers a crucial bridge between high school and meaningful post-secondary educational and career opportunities, in an encouraging environment that promotes self-discovery, communication, and collaboration.