Light@Night

As the result of a Neighborhoods First Early Action Grant, the Fab Lab was able to produce a curriculum to be used in workshops held at Crawford High School. In June we produced a community event called Sol Summer Nights to showcase these efforts that included the partnership and collaborative efforts of many community partners.

The workshops held at Crawford discussed the idea of appropriating technology, and introduced expressive projects based around the ‘Fab Tag’ program, which teaches concepts related to technology, including computing and multimedia production while allowing students to play with these tools in a non-threatening way.

I wanted to ‘open’ the process of presenting these projects by inviting other community organizations to be a part of the event. This proved to be beneficial for many reasons, and brought together Crawford High School, City Heights CDC, LISC, Boulevard Improvement Association, the Media Arts Center, TranscenDance and the IRC.

The challenge of planning and organization this program, with the collaborative effort of other community partners was a consuming undertaking, but one that continues to teach me valuable lessons about community organizing.

I contacted local media to promote the event broadly, and CityBeat was very supportive, and wrote a brief on the event: CityBeat: “The Kids Are Alright”

Additionally, our work was formally recognized by Councilmember Marti Emerald in a statement of support.