My Block, My Hood, My City

Don't leave Leon hanging; we have 242 homes left. Call your cousin and nem’. If you have additional contacts, reach out and aim to gather as many people as possible. Sign up in our bio or meet us tomorrow, Friday, Dec 8th, 11am at 8330 S King Drive. Erin’s Cup will be providing hot coffee to keep us warm!

See you there!

This Friday, let's bring some more festive cheer to King Drive! We need your help to decorate the remaining homes and make King Drive sparkle. Join us for a fun-filled day of spreading joy and creating wonderful memories together. See you there!

Big thanks to our awesome volunteers who made last Saturday a blast decorating almost 300 homes! The mission isn't complete yet – we're back at it this Friday, December 8, to light up the rest of the houses on our list. If you can join us, please sign up through the link in our bio. Your help means the world to us!

8330 S King Drive
11am-3

When do you feel the holiday vibes kick in, prompting you to start Christmas decorating?

Before Thanksgiving? After? Christmas Eve?

Year six brought some new challenges. Funding is down in the non-profit sector worldwide, there are wars abroad, and homelessness is rampant locally. We're hanging lights on King Drive to inspire hope. Even in the face of DEI fatigue, even in the midst of all the darkness, we brought the lights to King Drive. We did, y'all.

The relationships that have been built on our team leading up to this point enabled us to handle this well. We have strong bonds with each other that allow us to pull through adversity together. That's what we did with honest communication. We pulled together and leaned on one another. I think the Board of Directors, the fundraising team, and myself did a nice job of understanding how we're going to work through this drought to keep putting lights up.

Thank you to all the volunteers that came out. Thank you to everybody that made a donation, and to everyone who bought lights and gifts via our Amazon wish list. Thank you to our sponsors for making this event special.

Please keep supporting our work, y'all. I promise we’re going to keep working. Keep reducing the blight and hanging up lights.

Hello, everyone! Get ready for an incredible lineup on our schedule tomorrow—it's going to be a remarkable day. Don't forget to bring your kids along for the fun.

8330 S King Drive

Bulley and Andrews joined us this week to assist with our first corporate lighting event of the season. We kicked off the decorations on 83rd and King Drive for our December 2nd event!

Check out our coverage on Fox News!

See y’all Saturday for our annual Be a Part of the Light celebration at 8330 South King Dr. on December 2, starting at 12 PM. We’ve got kid-friendly activities, including a scavenger hunt, train rides, photos with Santa Claus, a snowmaking station, and a cookie-decorating station. The live music kicks off at 3 PM. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Chicago volunteers to decorate King Drive for the holidays Volunteers are getting ready to rock around the Chatham neighborhood this weekend as they string hundreds of lights around homes.

Exciting news! We've just picked up the toys Santa Claus sent us for his big arrival this Saturday. Make sure to bring your kids along for a day packed with fun activities. See you there on Saturday! 🎁

We're featured in the newsletter! Still plenty of time to jump in and be part of the action. Check out volunteer sign-ups in our bio, and you can even sign up to sponsor from your comfy couch. Let's do this together!

There Are Only A Few Hours Left!We Need Your Support! We Need 300 More Donations to Reach Our Goal!

Police lights and helicopter lights are rampant in underserved communities but holiday lights are scarce. 

This holiday season, we are bringing light and joy to the community by decorating hundreds of homes, street poles and trees with holiday lights, wreaths, ribbons, bows and more. 

We need 300 more people to make a contribution today, to help ensure that all community members who signed up can have their home decorated and their neighborhoods filled with brightness, hope and inspiration this holiday season. 

Let's Light Up the Community Together!

This Tuesday is a day of giving! Your donation can make a powerful difference in supporting programs like 'Be a Part of the Light' and furthering our overarching mission and operations. Join us in making an impact - donate today and be a part of positive change!

Links in our bio!

📅 Save the date for Giving Tuesday tomorrow! Giving Tuesday, which falls on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, is a global day dedicated to generosity and giving back. It’s a movement that encourages people to donate their time, resources, or talents to support various causes and organizations. Join us in supporting programs like “Be a Part of the Light” that contribute to our overarching mission and operations of our Org! Click the link in our bio to get a head start on tomorrow.

Looking for a Black women therapist who can support you through a range of life’s challenges? Partner with us on your healing journey!

This summer, I was at Cole Park, hooping and really pushing this Save Streetball initiative. If y'all remember, we're taking it into our own hands to put nets and rims back up in Chicago. It doesn't make sense to take down basketball hoops in an effort to prevent violence. Ain't nobody taking down soccer goals or volleyball nets up north on Lake Shore. People really on one man. There's no evidence correlating taking down hoops to increasing neighborhood safety. "If you catch somebody smoking w**d on a park bench, you don't take away the bench to stop them from smoking w**d." That's really the best way I can sum up how ______ the whole taking basketball rims thing really is.

Anyhow, man, I'm always hooping and meeting people. This particular time, I played ball with this rapper named OG Coop. He brought an outdoor speaker so we could listen to his music as we played. He had a cold song playing, and the lyrics went like…

"When it comes down to it, Ima keep it real withcha."

I asked him to repeat that like twice. He was excited and kept saying "you F'in with it!" Like you really like this. Dude is cold at rapping and hooping. I love hip hop and hoops, so I wouldn't send you off. He says he was working on his new album this summer, and it just dropped now. I told him I'd shout him out when the song came out officially. Check OG Coop out here.

Ay, How can we find the next Jabari, Derrick Rose or Isaiah Thomas if the rims are down? How you gone find the next OG Coming out p of ain't no parks., My goal is to work with the Park District and local community to put the goals back up at all the parks where they've been taken down, and then reactivate the spaces. An arbitrary decision has been made with no research, data, or proof about the correlation between basketball courts and violence.

Love to see y’all reppin’! Check out our website for holiday sweaters that might not win your office ugly sweater party, but they'll help fund our Explorers program. Find the link in our bio or below. 😄🎄

https://www.formyblock.org/shop/p/holiday-sweatshirt-green

See you there!

Our accounting team isn’t just behind the desk punching numbers; they are out making pickups and deliveries of holiday lights and gifts. It takes so much effort to light up King Drive and the South Side. Shoutout to all the people that work at social impact orgs, wearing multiple hats in order to do this work. It's still not too late to make Christmas brighter for the youth. Donate or buy something from our Amazon wishlist! Link in bio.

Turkey Day is here! Swing by Collins Academy in North Lawndale to grab your holiday turkey this Saturday, courtesy of Top Box. A big thanks to Top Box for making this festive giveaway possible. Let's share the joy of Thanksgiving together! 🍁

Volunteer with us this Saturday! We've teamed up with Top Box to deliver groceries to seniors in Chicago. Sign up today with the link in our bio.

I want to help you become more involved!

When comparing the corporate giving landscape in 2023 to a few years back, I sense a diversity, equity, and inclusion fatigue. In simpler terms, there's a giving drought. We can all feel it. In the morning, I try to bury my worries and fears with as much gratitude as possible. I'm truly grateful to have come this far. However, as I keep moving, there's not much time for personal feelings. There are too many people suffering and too many people who need our immediate support.

My purpose in life is to do something about it. The work that my organization does has been recognized, from the Forbes article below to the Today Show. I'm going to work with more corporations one-on-one so they can support the work of social impact organizations in my city and the world. Bring me in for a "Where Do I Start" workshop. You can book me for a few hours or even a lunchtime presentation. I don't need a fancy setup or anything.

I want to come talk to people at corporations about how to get involved and where to start. The number one question I'm asked is, "Where do I start?" My organization is an "on-ramp" to community engagement. I'm happy to teach you how to get engaged with nonprofit organizations in your city for the long term.

I know you understand the injustice being denied. I know you understand that people want to work for socially engaged corporations. I know you care. So do I. It takes all of us. We need partners in business, government, and nonprofits. We've got to work together, y'all.

Residents along Martin Luther King Dr. from 35th to 115th, sign up now to have your home decorated by our awesome volunteers on December 2nd. Click on the link below to sign up, or contact Lena at 708-529-9561 for assistance.

https://tr.ee/6ip7sXqgdL

📣 Join us on December 2nd to break last year's record of decorating 500 homes! We're gearing up for our 6th year, aiming higher than ever. Your support is crucial in making it a success. Register now to be part of this exciting initiative and make a difference!

https://www.mobilize.us/m3/event/580015/

📣 Join us on December 2nd to break last year's record of decorating 500 homes! We're gearing up for our 6th year, aiming higher than ever. Your support is crucial in making it a success. Register now to be part of this exciting initiative and make a difference! [Link in bio]

'Tis the season of giving! Our Amazon wishlist is brimming with items that can bring smiles to those who need it most. Want to join us in spreading holiday cheer? Click the link in our bio to contribute. Your kindness matters! Let's make this season brighter together.

Elevate your style this holiday season with our 100% woven silk ! Visit our website for a closer look and discover how neighborhood heroes like Tirrell Taylor and Roberto Paniagua rock them. Be inspired and make a statement this festive season!

Appreciation for the continuous flow of Amazon wishlist items! Huge thanks to all contributors. There's still an opportunity to be part of it – find our wishlist in the bio. Your support is invaluable. Thank you!

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3OJPTEQ7RDHQY/ref=hz_ls_biz_ex

On this Veterans Day, a salute to our hard word working colleagues Lena, Stephan, and Leon—true heroes among us. Your service echoes in the work you do for the org. Happy ! As we honor you, let's advocate for change: less money on missiles, more on mission statements.

It seems that Black and Brown people in the city aren't given the benefit of the doubt. , man. Stop checking my receipts and locking up the soap. I'm speaking out about it! Just because it's normal doesn't make it right. Just because it happens on the north side doesn't make it right. We need to start challenging these things and calling them out. There are so many levels of pain and indignity; essentially, it's a culture of disrespect. Can I just shop without someone checking my receipt when I leave? What's next, checking my wallet when I come in? Learn more in my new book. Grab a copy today to support the awakening. Don't stay asleep at the wheel. Wake up! Thank you in advance for the support. I need those shares, likes, and all that. Thank you 

Gratitude to the Chicago Loop Alliance for spotlighting us! Join us in making a difference—sponsor a home for $250 or explore our Amazon wish list through the links in our bio. Your support means the world.