Awarded Grants

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support “Just Love Stories,” a multimedia series that documents stories of love, justice, and culture that work towards social justice. Stories written by, as well as interviews of, community groups and individuals leading movements will be featured in a documentary web series titled “Just Love.”

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support a virtual rendition of Theatre in the X's “West Philly Play,” a social justice people's theatre. Via community play sessions on Zoom, stories will be shared by individuals involved in the 52nd Street standoff with police following the uprisings sparked by the murder of George Floyd. Community members will share their experiences with the gentrification of their neighborhoods. These videos will be recorded and be available publicly on Theatre in the X's website and will also serve as research for the creation of a 2021 in-person “West Philly Play.”

The 2020 Community Voices Fund grant will support Big Picture Alliance's Via Lux Teen Media program, a youth-led collective that produces films about important stories shaping the lives of young people and engages the public through screenings, broadcasts, social media, and an annual film fest.

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support the creation of the Coatesville Black Media Renaissance (CBMR) project, which will use storytelling and media-making to heal and reconcile race relations in the city of Coatesville. Specifically, CMBR will provide local artists and storytellers a vehicle to amplify community voices through a variety of media platforms such as film, print media, and mural arts to create a community driven media model that activates change against unjust media narratives, policing, and other racist practices that continue to marginalize Coatesville residents.

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support a collaboration with Raise the Bar Philly and Mighty Writers to produce a four-week intergenerational storytelling project. West Philadelphia youth journalists will interview community members about topics related to the Black experience with policing in Philadelphia as well as the community's vision of a better future for Black Philadelphians.

PlanPhilly provides in-depth reporting on Philadelphia neighborhoods with a focus on urban design & planning, transportation & development.

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support a pilot project with PlanPhilly and WHYY Media Labs that will create a model for area newsrooms to integrate anti-racist journalism practices into local public school journalism curriculum and local newsrooms and amplify youth voice while strengthening and diversifying a talent pipeline that for too long been dominated by white students from elite institutions.

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support “Report from the Future” a project to convene artists, designers, and community members to ask, “What does a Philadelphia look like that's designed for me?” Facilitated and curated by an “Afrofuturist-in-Residence” at The Village, the resulting multimedia responses will serve as reference points, learning aids, and lodestars for policymakers and stakeholders working to rebuild Philadelphia in the wake of COVID-19 and local and national uprisings for racial justice.

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support a time capsule book and website of essays, photographs, poems and other creative formats documenting the Uprising (Against White Supremacy, in Defense of Black Lives) in Philadelphia from May-June 2020. The project will collage intergenerational reflections of Black Philadelphians with an intersectional emphasis and attunement to the ongoing labor of “how we get free.”

Amistad Law Project (ALP) will use the 2020 Community Voices grant to amplify the voices of people in communities impacted by mass incarceration and policing. In response to the uprising, the project will highlight and promote the voices of directly impacted people in the work to create alternatives to policing and reimagine the institutions and practices that lead to safer communities. ALP will train community members to use media and media-making to tell their stories of safety and alternatives to policing such as unarmed first responders trained in de-escalation techniques.

The 2020 Community Voices grant will support Project Engage, an internet radio programming targeting community violence, mental health, education, and civic engagement in Chester, Pennsylvania and surrounding communities.