Urban Art Bike Camp: Art 120, a non-profit organization set out to teach kids appropriate welding and design skills to create a unique art bike to ride during our upcoming Glass Street LIVE parade. The two week camp, run by Kate Warren, was held at the East Chatt YFD Center and created a lot of buzz amongst not only the kids participating in the camp, but also amongst the kids in the neighborhood since they were able to see the progress of the bikes from start to finish. From a ladybug to a red race car swivel bike, each camper was involved in the designing and creating of their pieces from beginning to end. The campers, along with their recently finished bikes, will be able to participate in the Glass Street LIVE Parade on October 8th.

Magic Markers Teens: Mark Making of Chattanooga, an organization started by local artist, Frances McDonald, held its third year of Magic Markers Teens this year. The work readiness program has provided local teens a creative space to come together and create three murals to hang around the neighborhood. These murals are not only aesthetically pleasing to the community, but also provide an important message of hope. During each session, the teens are led by a group of local artists to pick three inspirational and relevant words to create the murals. This final session’s three words were “Growth”, “Develop”, and “Help!”. To learn more about Magic Markers teens, visit the recent article Times Free Press wrote about them here.

Archway Kids: Michele Peterson, local businesswoman, started Archway Kids about a year ago in what is now the Archway building on Glass Street. Every Wednesday night young adults in East Chattanooga gather together to learn various marketing skills from Michele, all while practicing the social and professional skills essential to working and collaborating with others in a business environment. Although Michele believes it is important for these young adults to learn these important skills, this doesn’t mean all work and no play! Just recently Michele and the rest of Archway crew went rafting down the Ocoee River! To learn more about Archway Kids visit their facebook page here.

Mozilla Haunt Camp: We are so excited to announce the launch of the first Mozilla Haunt camp this summer! GHC’s Community Coordinator, Nicole Lewis received a separate grant to run the pilot program, and has been teaching kids in the community the skills to create their own video games. In addition to learning the physical process to creating a video game, the participating youth were challenged to create a game that highlights some of the various problems teens face today in the East Chattanooga community.

Click HERE to sponsor a kid to participate in the Urban Art Bike Camp. We appreciate the support and thank you for helping us reach our $2,000 fundraiser goal!

Glass House Collective has recruited Art 120’s 2017 Urban Art Bike Camp to the East Chatt YFD Center. The camp will empower local youth to design and create welded art bikes to ride in the Glass Street LIVE block party parade, the grand finale event of City Celebration, a city-wide progressive bike party directed by Shannon Burke on October 8.

Art 120, under the direction of Kate Warren, has experienced challenges following the devastating fire at their former maker space, so when we approached her with the idea of returning to the Glass Farm neighborhood, she stepped up with enthusiasm! (See the Art 120 YouTube video link HERE) We’re so glad that Mr. Drake, director of the East Chatt YFD Center, was so supportive of the idea, as the center provides an ideal temporary home base this summer. We’re enthusiastic about local kids here on Glass Street gaining access to welding and artistic design experience, within walking distance of their own homes!

Warren kicked things off this week (June 26-30) with the Teacher Training followed by the 2 week camp program (July 3-14), in which campers will be expected to commit and follow-through with learning the techniques and carrying out their plan to create the bikes they draft and imagine, all within a slim operating budget. In order to recruit and fund 12 campers, Glass House Collective has assisted with outreach and facilitated planning meetings in order to generate our creative partnerships in this neighborhood (Art 120 + East Chatt YFD Center). As a final celebration, campers will head to Coolidge Park for a showcase of their bikes and presentation of certificates in front of family and friends on July 15.

By the end of Urban Art Bike Camp, a fleet of 3 new sculptural art bikes will be ready to pedal down Glass Street as a part of the Glass Street LIVE parade on October 8, showcasing the artistic talent of local East Chattanooga youth. Shannon Burke’s Ciclovia City Celebration biking event to highlight various Chattanooga neighborhoods is exciting, and we’re proud that Glass Street LIVE is the finale block party of the whole day! Working together, we also recognized an opportunity and need to bolster local kids’ cycling experience and ownership so that they feel truly included. By building their own creations with Art120, Glass Farm neighborhood youth can take pride in pairing their welding skills with bike safety experience.

As Warren recalls, “The kids who made bikes here on Glass Street in 2012 still carry those skills and memories. This is a neighborhood bursting with creativity. We’re excited to be pumping new life back into the Urban Art Bike initiative, partnering with Glass House Collective to discover what a whole new set of 11-14 year-olds here can dream up and create.”

Again, you can click HERE to sponsor a camper! Give a local Glass Farm neighborhood kid the full Urban Art Bike Camp experience! Help us meet our $2,000 contribution goal! Your contribution makes a huge difference– Thank you!

The club has proven very popular with the Hardy kids, which is probably due to a mix of curiosity about the subject matter and affection for Nikki herself, who showers participants with encouragement, humor, enthusiasm, and discipline.

During a racing activity with a group of 2nd graders, Nikki timed each child’s turn as the leader, sending the charge of electrical current down the line, represented by two foam balls the students passed from hand to hand. The only catch: they had to start all over if anyone dropped the ball, breaking the flow of “current.” Competition ran fierce– and when disappointment overflowed into tears or anger, Nikki used the experience to drop in some social lessons as well. “They learn to go with the flow when working together, which is just as important as understanding how to use energy responsibly,” Nikki says. “They are learning that true leaders never put themselves first.”

Because of the Energy Club, it was much easier to collect students to help program the colorful “pucks” that made up Jen Lewin’s “The Pool” art installation during our East Chatt Highlight Festival back in April. That was a rare opportunity for Elementary kids to collaborate with an internationally renowned artist, in preparation for the festival held in their own neighborhood!

It’s overall success has prompted Empower to sponsor the Energy Club next year as well! We’re excited to see more partnership between Hardy Elementary School and our neighborhood partners, and proud to read about continual innovation flowing from inspiring teachers there, like Brittany Harris and Colleen Ryan with The Passage mobile homework help bus, renovated locally by Studio Everything!

“Part of the skating experience is getting used to how it feels to fall down, and get back up,” Kim says. “With the support of the group, it’s less intimidating.”

Jaden Melvin, a student from Magic Markers, was unable to attend the pop-up Skateboarding 101 event, but she connects with Kim regularly, asking for a skate park in the area. Kim and Westin are encouraged by the presence of girls like Jaden with an interest in skating.

Local poet, Genesis the Greykid was on hand after working with the Magic Markers youth, and brought his own skating skills to the hangout, enjoying time with the Glass Street kids.

Our group had fun visiting Ranger Chris Barr, a regular at Good Neighbor Network meetings whenever we have news about Sherman Reservation, the park nearest the Glass Farm neighborhood. He shared the story about African American civil war soldiers training on the site where AT&T Field now stands.

Another highlight was getting to eat free hotdogs as we watched the game and silly antics in between the innings. Mr. Cam, a local mentor, did a great job pulling the crowd-cam our direction to showcase the kids high-fiving and air-guitaring on the jumbo-tron!

Everyone looked forward to meeting the beloved mascots for the Lookouts, Louie and Louise– and the kids got their national parks banners signed by Louie, along with one free shirt (caught by Cleavon Smith Jr.).

We were so lucky to have our group’s tickets sponsored by Kay Parish, longtime supporter and friend of Glass House Collective’s work, and particularly the neighborhood kids looking for meaningful summer activities. Kay also volunteers with the Friends of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, so this was the perfect game to attend! Because we were registered guests, the announcer welcomed us over the loudspeaker twice during the game!

Our Lookouts wound up beating the Jackson Generals 4-2! It seems like kids from the Glass Farm neighborhood are lucky fans to have on the bleachers! Yay for the Chattanooga Lookouts!