Tell our Own Story: Photography at East Lake Elementary

East Lake Community PTA is a network of parents, teachers, educators, and community members who are fierce, and who will do anything it takes to help children thrive. They believe the arts can play a strategic role in building up children and bringing our community together. So the plan is to equip 10 children in a Spring Break workshop to tell their own stories through art, to begin to see themselves as storytellers, to know that their own unique perspective tells the world something it could not know without them. How? Cameras. Enter The UNFoundation.

Shelton Brown of Humans of Chattanooga and Audrey Menard of ELLAchattanooga (also the PTA president) will teach kids basic skills of photography, portraits, and photojournalism. During the week, students will get to take their cameras home with them to document the stories around them. Students will choose one photograph to have professionally printed and framed and then display their work at +Coffee in an art show. At the end of the workshop, the cameras will be donated to the art program the PTA is building at the Title 1 school, so that in the upcoming year, all 540 students can have access to the art of photography as they learn to tell their own visual stories. #winning

Travel Lego Kits for Foster Kids | 16yr old Eagle Scout

A rising Eagle Scout applied for help with his project. His plan, one pretty awesome for a 16 year old kid, was to custom build 100 Lego travel kits for foster kids in the Hamilton and Catoosa County areas.  After studying the details, he was unanimously voted an UNFoundation winner by a group of 100 budding philanthropists.  (That's us in case you were wondering, our 5th birthday party was huge.)

Lego kits can be expensive and kids in troubled situations, along with the adults who take care of them, may not be able to afford them. Our $1,000 grant will purchase lunch boxes and base plates to build on, all legos will be donated through a drive he plans to have at his school. Volunteers (Scouts, Leaders, Friends) will help with sizing the base plates, gluing them to lids and sorting Legos for each kit.  Catoosa and Hamilton County DFCS as well as Catoosa and Hamilton County Police Departments will help distribute the kits as needed. Way to come together, everyone. Go team!
 

Pass the Plate: Hardy Elementary Teach with Food

Kelsey Googe and Emily Brace are CDC teachers at Hardy Elementary. CDC stands for Child Development Credential, in layman terms they specialize in teaching children with special needs. These teachers have been cooking with their 3rd - 5th grade students every Friday for almost 3 years, and using their own money to fund the supplies. What does the Friday cooking class look like? If they are studying colonial times, they're making butter. Studying the life cycle of a butterfly? Make a pretzel and celery model! Phases of the moon? Must be Oreo time! Students learn how to follow directions, measuring, social skills, problem solving and teamwork.

Our $1,000 grant will be used for weekly food, but it will also be used to purchase some additional kitchen items, such as an additional microwave, toaster oven, stand alone burner, bowls, permanent utensils, and measuring items. Teachers shouldn't be spending their own money buying these items. We got you, Ms. Googe and Ms. Brace.

Refugee Coffee: Mad Priest Coffee Roasters

The mission of Mad Priest Coffee is “craft excellent coffee, educate the curious, and champion the displaced.” Though they believe in producing the best product, they equally believe in creating a business that educates and empowers. Our $1,000 January grant helps with a coffee subscription program with an educational component designed to teach coffee drinkers about conflict zones and displaced peoples as well as tools to teach employees English.

Subscription Program: 3x5 cards will go out with each subscription plan (did you know you can have coffee delivered right to your door here in Chattanooga?) that have a featured country of the month. The cards will be educational material on both the conflict in that country, and the coffee being grown.

Job Training Program: Resources for the staff to utilize, such as language materials (mastering English through a platform like Rosetta Stone) and espresso/coffee training are needed to do this right. Bridge Refugee Services helps find the right people to come and work for Mad Priest Coffee. Mad Priest Coffee does the rest.

Wilderness First Aid at Lookout Mountain Conservancy

Imagine having the knowledge to save someone's life. Take it a step further, imagine using that knowledge to actually save someone's life. Now think about the pride and self worth you feel from having this knowledge. Empowering, isn't it. Not only will completion of this class bolster self worth, it will make the interns better equipped to help each other while working on the property doing conservation work. This is what our $1,000 grant will bring to 11 Howard High School students currently enrolled in the Howard Intern and Leadership Program. What's that? Read here.

This wilderness first aid class would also be open to the public and has the potential to expand and generate income for the Lookout Mountain Conservancy (LMC). SOLO will teach the classes on the LMC property, and after 32 years with over 120,000 students trained, is considered to be the pioneer of wilderness medicine. In Chattanooga, the scenic city, the outdoor Mecca of the Southeast, the closest option for this training is the Nantahala Outdoor Center in North Carolina, 125 miles away. We are moving on up. Just like the Jeffersons.