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RDLF News: Issue 17

Staff on the Ground

Star Farm Site Visit
On July 17th, Reva and David Logan Foundation (RDLF) staff members Jessie Mott, Lyle Allen, and Paulina Plewa spent an afternoon at Star Farm Chicago (SFC) with Executive Director, Stephanie Dunn. During the visit, the SFC team and volunteers were preparing their weekly Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables for delivery to families throughout Chicago’s south side. RDLF staff also toured the soon to be opened Star Farm Fresh Market, Shared Kitchen and Community Room that will provide access to much needed space for a fresh produce market, a community kitchen, offices, education and employment opportunities, workshops, and support for local food entrepreneurs.

Onward House's 4th Annual Health Fair
On July 20th, Onward Neighborhood House hosted their 4th Annual Health Fair. Staff members Lyle Allen and Lilly Torres attended the event that brought together 40 partner-vendors sharing health resources and a day full of entertainment and activities including yoga, Zumba, face painting, raffles, haircuts, Baile Folklórico, and an Ecuadorian band. This year, a record number of more than 900 families received 14,000 pounds of fresh produce supplied through RDLF's Fresh Produce program, plus free dental and medical services from partners!

CUSP Mutual Aid Day
Also on July 20th, RDLF staff member Sabrina Boggs volunteered at Chicago United Solidarity Project (CUSP)'s monthly mutual aid day. The RDLF regularly contributes to CUSP's mutual aid efforts by providing food from our Food Rescue program. In addition to CUSP's offerings of fresh produce and pantry staples, Mothers Against Senseless Killings and Pet Mutual Aid were present to provide personal care items and pet supplies. CUSP staff and volunteers worked together before the event to sort everything into bags to allow for easy distribution and ensure every family got a wide variety of items. The two-hour event served around 120 families, and every single food product that we supplied was given out to families.

In the News

Photo credit: Rick Rycroft/AP
The RDLF has long fought in support of Julian Assange's release. James Harkin, board member of RDLF and director of The Centre for Investigative Journalism, spoke to The Guardian about his recent release and the future of WikiLeaks.
“In retrospect, it’s striking that everything WikiLeaks published was true – no small feat in the era of “disinformation” – but the tragedy is that much of its energy and ethos has now passed to blowhards and conspiracy theorists. Perhaps, in the light of our tepid new involvements in the Middle East and Ukraine, we need a new WikiLeaks.”
Read the full article here.

Grantee Accomplishments

New law cites CIR's investigation
After seeing Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR)'s documentary film Victim/Suspect, legislators in Connecticut passed a law aimed at standardizing and improving the way police treat victims in the aftermath of a sexual assault. Democratic state Rep. Eleni Kavros DeGraw, a co-sponsor of the bill, cited Rachel de Leon's investigation in her testimony, which found dozens of cases, including several in Connecticut, in which women reporting sexual assaults were ultimately charged with crimes after law enforcement doubted their stories or zeroed in on behavior common for victims of trauma.
You can watch Victim/Suspect on Netflix today.

Impact Behavioral Health Partners awarded $3.9M SAMHSA grant

Photo credit: Impact Behavioral Health Partners
Impact Behavioral Health Partners is the recipient of a $3.9 million Transforming Lives Through Supported Employment Program Grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). This five-year grant will fund the Apoyó de Empleo Latino (ADEL) program, launching in September across all 13 Erie Family Health Centers in Chicagoland.
ADEL will utilize the Individual Placement & Support (IPS) model of supported employment to address employment disparities among low-income adults with mental illness or co-occurring disorders, predominantly serving low-income Hispanic and African American women. Bilingual services will be offered to ensure accessibility for ADEL participants.
With this expansion, Impact projects an additional 920 participants over the next 5 years. Their IPS employment services have seen significant success, with 87% of clients retaining competitive employment for at least 90 days. They expect similar results with ADEL.
In addition, congratulations to the following partners for their recent awards:

Upcoming Opportunities

Open Applications

  • Elastic Arts Visual Gallery Curatorial Residency: This one-year residency is designed for someone looking to start, grow, or refresh their curatorial practice. The Visual Gallery Curator at Elastic Arts will be responsible for planning, programming, and coordinating visual art for the gallery area at Elastic Arts from October 2024 through September 2025. There is an annual stipend of $1,000, divided into four payments, disbursed at each opening. Applications are due August 12, 2024.
  • Illinois Arts Council Creative Catalyst Grant: Creative Catalyst Grant is a new IAC grant program that offers support to Illinois artists and non-profit organizations for arts-related projects, programming, events, and/or professional development. The FY25 Creative Catalyst Grant is an open deadline grant program with an award amount up to $12,000 per applicant. Applications will be accepted until the funds have been expended. Each IAC region has its own allocation so regions may close at different times. Applications must be submitted to the IAC’s Salesforce grant portal a minimum of 8 weeks prior to the start date of the arts project being considered for IAC funding.
  • Latitude Chicago Artist in Residence: Latitude's Artist in Residence Program is a one month production residency where 8-10 artists are granted full access to our facilities and community to develop their practice. Artists who are interested in production, education, and experimentation with their technology are encouraged to apply. The application opens on August 1st and closes on August 31st at 12pm CST.

Job Openings

What We're Reading

One Name, Two Lists
Airwars: "In the largest and most in-depth public analysis of the [Palestinian Ministry of Health] data yet, Airwars used open source monitoring to independently identify nearly 3,000 full names of civilian victims killed in the first 17 days of the war ... this investigation found a high correlation between the official MoH data and what Palestinian civilians reported online."

Science for sale: Philip Morris’s web of payments to fund tobacco research
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: "Philip Morris made more than $20bn from cigarettes last year. It sold nearly 80 for every person on the planet ... So the company’s “mission to deliver a smoke-free future” may sound like a strange ambition. In fact it is a calculated corporate strategy."

How a 4,000-Word Coast Guard Email Erupted Into a Reckoning of Military Sexual Assault
The War Horse: “... two months after Whistler McGee’s initial email, what started as a quest for vengeance has erupted into a rank-and-file reckoning over how the military handles sexual assaults and who should drive the conversation about whether leadership is doing enough to address the problem."

Narco-Contamination: Cooking an Environmental Catastrophe in Mexico’s Illegal Drug Labs

Quinto Elemento Lab: "Thousands of clandestine laboratories producing synthetic drugs are dumping tons of toxic chemicals into Mexico’s most fragile ecosystems. Who is responsible for protecting the environment from the growing number of these laboratories, built to feed the opioid epidemic in the United States?"

UK covers up Gaza spy footage from day of aid worker massacre
Declassified UK: "Britain’s Ministry of Defence holds video surveillance footage of Gaza from the day that Israel killed seven international aid workers but is refusing to publish the tape. Among those killed in the World Central Kitchen convoy on 1 April were three British military veterans: John Chapman, James Kirby and James ‘Jim’ Henderson. "

Subscribe to Movement on Montrose
Movement on Montrose (MoM) is our new event space and non-profit collective dedicated to fostering creativity and community engagement located at 2951 W Montrose Ave. In addition to a 1,550 square feet event space with a state-of-the-art sound system, it has three dance/movement studios ready for classes and rehearsals.
MoM officially opened on July 9th, and we are quickly building up our portfolio of partners and programming. Stay in the know about opportunities and events by signing up for our mailing list!

We'd like to hear from you!

Thanks for reading! We have an open call for content from our partners to highlight the brilliant work they're doing in the community. If you are a current grantee or partner with The Reva and David Logan Foundation and you would like to contribute to our next newsletter, please reach out to Sabrina Boggs, Communications Coordinator at sabrina(at)loganfdn(dot)org. Please note that we will not share fundraising campaigns.
In addition, we are frequently reposting our grantees on our social media, so make sure to follow us and tag us in your posts! Links to our socials are below.

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