Dumas Mural Installation

From Brian Wongkamalasai, Bridge Builder coordinator...I am excited to announce that one of the three major mural projects that Bridge Builders' groups will be working this year is 100% complete and in its permanent location. This installation is in partnership with a local elementary school, Dumas Tech. They are located here in the Woodlawn neighborhood on 67th Street. The mural is our first step towards a productive future. Bridge Builder teams painted and then hung the mural with direction from our local muralist Dammon Reed. It depicts African Americans using advanced forms of technology. A cameo appearance of President Obama and his Blackberry is something to look for… The mural is our first step with the school is a productive, mutually-beneficial community engagement. Bridge Builder teams painted and then, hung the mural in the school with direction from our local muralist Dammon Reed.

The mural is a great fit for the recently re-opened, re-organized technology-centric school. This particular mural depicts African-Americans employing various forms of advanced technology, placed in the school to motivate and inspire students. A cameo appearance of President Obama and his Blackberry is something to look for…

WBEZ Special Report: 50/50

WBEZ - Chicago Public Radio recently put forth a special report entitled "Fifty-Fifty: the Odds of Graduating", shining a spotlight on the fact that only half of those who enroll freshman year at Chicago public high school will end up graduating. For the special report, WBEZ reporters took to the halls of Chicago's south side Robeson High, following a handful of students to get an inside glimpse at what causes students to stay the course and what obstacles challenge their completion.

Click Here to go directly to the special report.

While Robeson lies in the Englewood neighbor just south and west of Sunshine, there are astounding statistical parallels between that school and the high schools in too many Chicago neighborhoods, Woodlawn included. You can visit Interactive Illinois Report Card to view the numbers yourself. Robeson currently enrolls 1,270 students and of those 6.9% meet or exceed PSAE standards in reading, 2.8% in math, and 2.4% in science. This is compared to the approximately 50% of students statewide that respectively meet these standards in all three categories. By comparison, at Dyett High School, which many of the students a part of Sunshine's programs attend, 5.7% meet PSAE reading requirements, 2.3% meet math requirements, and finally, 1.1% meet these same science requirements.

There is MUCH that can be said about the current achievement gap and the underlying challenges for teachers, administrators, parents and students. Nonetheless, current state and performance of far too many of our Chicago high schools is alarming and sad. We encourage you to check out WBEZ's special report to learn more about the challenges that are before our schools and those who are working to augment student's schoolwork.

Bridge Builders in High Gear

With Spring Break upon us and summer quickly rounding the corner, our Bridge Builders program is in high gear. Last week alone we had 80 college students join us from 5 different universities. Executive Director, Joel Hamernick, blogged about this week. Click HERE to view his blog. (P.S. The link to his blog can be always be found on the right column of this blog linked as "Executive Note")

Some excellent pictures came out of the week as well. Check them out through the Flickr slideshow below!!!

Top Urban Ministry Speakers, Websites, and Blogs

Last week UrbanMinistry.org presented its list of the most popular Urban Ministry and Social Justice speakers, websites, and blogs of 2008. View the list HERE. Each of the organizations and websites featured were national in scope. The statistics cover UrbanMinistry.org downloads, podcast downloads, and YouTube views for speakers as well as content provided by CCDA, AGRM, Kingdomworks, and Compassionworks. Christian website rankings are based on Alexa ranking, which is the most popular public website ranking tool. Blog statistics were compiled using Technorati authority. Many of the people and organizations featured are ones we at Sunshine follow closest and at times engage with in active dialogue.

Public Murals Speak to God's Grace in Woodlawn

March is Spring Break month! And, the start of a heightened Bridge Builders season at Sunshine. As you may well know, Bridge Builders is our short-term missions program designed to immerse college and adult participants from around the country in the urban context. The program engages participants in a multi-faceted agenda that address matters which affect the urban poor, examining the many passages in Scripture which speak to these matters. While the program emphasizes listening and learning about cross-cultural engagement in our country, participants also engage in service.

Each year we work hard to engage our Bridge Builders partners in effective community ministry. This can be challenging as effective work is genuinely beneficial to both the community as well as team members. This year our teams are working on an inspiring and extremely creative project: public murals!!! These murals are being designed by a local artist and will be actually painted and installed by our Bridge Builders participants. The installations will occur on our building, in a public location outside in our community, and in one of our partnering elementary schools.

Murals in the community can be a powerful way to reflect the image of God in contextualized manner. We expect the murals will be well received in the community, extending the long-term relationships between Sunshine and community residents while also portraying with clarity God’s grace and love. Stay tuned to see what transpires from these beautiful projects.

Young Entrepreneur Earns Competitive Program Placement

Ever since Teandra Armstrong volunteered her Saturdays washing and braiding hair at her cousin’s beauty salon she has dreamed of opening up her own shop. She says, “There’s a vibe. I don’t know. I can’t quite explain it. It’s just fun. Secrets are opened up [at the shop]. People can’t keep the stories to themselves anymore.” You get the sense in talking with Teandra that the beauty shop is her element and, as long as the neighborhood ladies keep coming and telling their stories, it will forever be her element.

Teandra is a part of our technology apprenticeship program for high school students, which meets three days a week after school through our partnerships with After School Matters and the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). Teandra is one of approximately 22 students who participate in the apprenticeship program each semester, including summers. The program is a place where she can be encouraged in her dream of opening her own beauty shop and receive the mentoring and skill training she needs to set her on a course to accomplish the dream.

Teandra is a sophomore at Bronzeville Scholastic Institute, located about a mile from our Center. This spring is her third semester in our apprenticeship program, where this past semester she crafted a business plan for her own beauty shop. Throughout the program and into the young entrepreneur’s small business competition, Teandra showed great promise. In looking forward to this summer she was recommended to the Rotary Job1 program by NFTE staff who watched her compete this beauty shop business plan. Job1 provides high school students, like Teandra, with substantive summer internships with local businesses, where students, like Teandra, will receive continued mentoring and advice from a professional business advisory team. She recently learned of her acceptance into the program, already spending one Saturday a month until the summer, in job readiness training. (She tells, with humble satisfaction, of this past Saturday’s group project to redesign the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate candy bar, providing a new slogan, logo and commercial for the company. Her teammates picked her design to expand upon – a design which ended up winning the day’s competition.)

We are proud of and excited for Teandra! “We will miss her [this summer],” says Vincent McCaskill, our technology center director, “but she is an example of what we hope the students will achieve.”

Willow Creek: Thousand Questions Video

For the last several years the Willow Creek Association (spawned through Willow Creek Community Church) has hosted the Leadership Summit. The annual conference has grown each year and is now hosted in 80+ satellite locations and attracting people for around the globe. The premise of the conference is that whether at church, school, business or home, so many of us are leading everyday. Leadership takes perseverance, dedication and a commitment to stretch your mind, expand your heart and use your God-given gifts to impact your world in real and powerful ways. And, it's important for diverse leadership to come together to be encouraged, to share best practices, and to be sharpened. The resources that come out of the Association have been beneficial to thousands of people, their teams, theirs congregations. Sunshine is no exception to that; we have benefited from the print, media, and conference resources.

The artistic genius that has flowed out of the Willow team and been expressed at these conferences has so often impressive and inspiring. One particular video came out of last year's Leadership Summit that particularly caught our attention and it's safe to say, the attention of many others.

You can see for yourself here on YouTube.



The questions that are asked in this video are honest, transparent ones that pull from the gut. They are humble us. We show this video to our Bridge Builders teams. The video is a important place to start for to dismiss the fatigue, the doubt, even the cynicism in our hearts when it comes to our individual role in missions is shortsighted and, in end, unproductive.

What are your thoughts after watching the video? Did it resonate with you?

The next Leadership Summit is scheduled for August6-7, 2009. You can register here.