FIREBIRD COMMUNITY ARTS
Forging the Future
The Campaign to Build Firebird’s New Campus and Expand Art, Healing, and Opportunity.
Join Firebird as We Forge the Future
Together we can expand access to healing-centered art making and ensure more young people have the skill, support, and pathways to define their own futures.
Laying a Foundation for What is Possible.
Firebird Community Arts’s mission is to empower and connect people through the artistic practice of glassblowing and ceramics. For the past ten years Firebird has stood alongside youth and young adults affected by trauma, violence, and systemic inequality. Through healing-centered art making and mentorship, participants have had the chance to transform their lived experiences into resilience, confidence and real creative skills.
An Exciting New Home for Art, Healing & Opportunity in East Garfield Park
As our permanent and lasting home, this will be a place for art that helps young people build confidence, strengthen communication, workplace skills, and form meaningful connections with one another.
We will create more partnerships with community-based organizations to expand holistic approaches to wellness
We plan to serve three times as many youth, while neighbors and clients will have access to creative spaces and restorative practices.
In coordination with University of Chicago Medicine trauma-informed best practices will ensure lasting outcomes
Artistic skills will turn into life skills and workforce skills as we build our production department, expanding youth-led revenue to help sustain our work into the future.
Opening in Spring 2027: Keep the Fire Burning!
We are deeply grateful to the individual supporters, foundations and public partners who have helped bring Firebird to this moment. Their generosity and leadership affirm what we have long believed: that creative space is civic infrastructure, and that access to art is access to opportunity, especially for communities historically affected by disinvestment.
To explore how you can support Firebird’s mission, please contact us at info@firebirdcommunityarts.org.
Our History
For the past ten years, Firebird has stood alongside Black and Latino youth and young adults ages 14–20, offering a safe place to create, reflect, and build new possibilities through glassblowing and ceramics. Through healing-centered artmaking, trauma-informed support, and mentorship, participants develop confidence, communication skills, workforce readiness, and a strong sense of community.
The new campus will allow this work to grow, reaching more young people and strengthening programs that transform lived experience into resilience, creative skill, and meaningful futures
WHAT We’RE BUILDING TOWARDS:
A campus built for healing, creativity, and lasting change.
HOT SHOP
1 Solar-powered Furnace
4 Gas-powered Glory Holes
CERAMICS
Adding 4 more wheels for a total of 12 (this will increase our ability to serve more participants within our various programs like ASM)
FLAMEWORKING
Adding 4 Bobcat torches
2 Scorpion torches
Larger annealer
Oxygen concentrators
THERAPY ROOMS / OFFICES
Desks
Tables
Chairs
Shelving
Storage
Join Us in Bringing This Vision to Life
Studios, gathering spaces, and community
Every element of the campus, from studios to gathering spaces and gardens, has been intentionally designed to foster creativity, connection, and belonging. This next chapter is being made possible by a growing community of donors and partners — and we invite you to join them in bringing this vision fully to life.
Together, we can ensure that the transformative power of art continues to open doors for young people, affirming the promise that trauma does not determine destiny, and that every young person has the power to define their own future.
To learn more about how you can support Firebird’s mission, please contact info@firebirdcommunityarts.org.
Help forge the future for art and healing in Chicago.
We still have critical funding to raise to fully realize the promise of this campus and the programs it will sustain. Every investment shapes what's possible.