We have a limited number of tickets, so to ensure that all Core Members have the ability to access this Member Benefit, we are giving out the Zoo tickets in two rounds this time. From now until August 5, 2022 all Core Members are allowed to request up to 200 tickets. If there are any tickets left, the second round of tickets will be open to all members (including Partner Members) on a first come, first serve basis. This will be announced on August 5, 2022 during the August Town Hall.
EDIT JULY 1: Thanks to many Members responding very quickly to our initial post, we are able to release ALL remaining Brookfield Zoo tickets ahead of schedule. Any Member (Core or Partner) may request any amount of zoo tickets, and they will be distributed on a first come, first served basis until they are gone.
Please contact Abby Foss at [email protected] to request your tickets.
The goal of the Brookfield Pass Program is to provide free access for Core Member communities to Brookfield Zoo. Please make sure to keep the follow Guidelines and Information in mind when requesting and distributing your tickets:
Information about the tickets
Each ticket provides free admission to Brookfield Zoo for one adult or one child
Tickets do not include free parking or admission to special exhibits
Tickets expire on March 31, 2023
Requirements
Zoo tickets are a Member Benefit, so a Member must be current on dues for 2022 to receive tickets. (If you cannot pay dues now or must pay in installments, that can be arranged.)
Any promotion of the program should include recognition of Chicago Cultural Alliance and Brookfield Zoo.
Core Members are the responsible party for distributing the zoo tickets to their community by allowing 4 tickets per family.
Zoo tickets are not allowed to be distributed in bulk to organizations unaffiliated with the Chicago Cultural Alliance.
We expect Core Members to distribute tickets in such a way that they are not available for someone to sell illegally.
It’s time to start thinking about Journey Chicago, our annual festival of intercultural events hosted by you, our Members! Journey Chicago will take place throughout October 2022. Journey Chicago strengthens our mission by promoting our Members to a large audience, fostering cross-cultural dialogue, and supporting our Members with micro-grants for their events.
Here are the main dates to watch out for to apply for Journey Chicago this year: Initial Program Proposal Due: July 15, 2022 Final Program Proposal Information Form & Budget Due: August 15, 2022
Email our Programs Coordinator, Abby Foss at [email protected] with questions or come to today’s Town Hall to learn more.
Registration is now LIVE for Chicago’s Alliance for Response Kick-off Forum sponsored by FAIC! This event is open and FREE to any cultural heritage professional. Registration will close on June 15. See details below:
On June 29, 2022, the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation (FAIC), Chicago History Museum, and a local planning committee will convene an Alliance for Response (AFR) Kick-off Forum at the Chicago History Museum in Chicago, Illinois.
The goal of AFR is to help communities more effectively protect cultural and historic resources in the event of floods, hurricanes, fires, and other disasters by bringing cultural heritage and emergency management professionals together to network and learn from each other. Participants will include professionals from museums, libraries, archives, and historic sites, as well as neighborhood first responders, key state and local emergency managers, and civic leaders.
Objectives:
initiate an ongoing dialogue between cultural heritage professionals, emergency managers, and first responders;
raise awareness of the need to protect cultural and historic resources within communities;
encourage disaster planning and training at archives, historic sites, libraries, and museums;
develop strong networks among these institutions to improve local response to emergencies.
Presentation Topics:
When the Going Gets Tough: Federal Response for Cultural Heritage (Lori Foley)
How the Chicago History Museum Prepares for and Responds to Collections Emergencies (Julie Katz, Carol Turchan)
Collaborating for Water Triage Response at the Ho-Chunk Nation Museum (Josephine Lee, Erin Murphy)
Response and Recovery to a 2018 Mold Outbreak in Special Collections Storage at the Northwestern University Libraries (Tonia Grafakos)
Cross-Sector Collaboration: Best Practices for Cultural Institutions (Tom Henkey)
The Forum will convene a broad and diverse array of colleagues at both cultural organizations and regional emergency management organizations.
Byoung Sug Kim (2022 Outstanding Community Leader Award Recipient and Founder/Executive Director of the Korean Performing Arts Institute of Chicago) has generously offered 30 free tickets to the Chicago Cultural Alliance for the ADG7 Concert on Thursday, June 9 at 7:30pm.
Tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis by emailing Marie at [email protected]. Email Marie with “Concert Tickets” in the subject line and tell her:
1. How many tickets you want.
2. Names of each person who will get a ticket.
3. Email address for each person who will get a ticket.
You will pick up the tickets at the theatre registration table at the concert by telling them your names.
ADG7 is a Korean folk-pop band that puts a modern twist on traditional music.
Right now, Korea is going through a sort of folk music revival, and there has been a boom in traditional and pop music crossovers. In this new wave of fusion music, ADG7 stands out as an internationally recognized group that is masterful yet fun and accessible in its performance of traditional music.
They’ve won several awards including the Sori Frontier Award at the 2017 Jeonju International Sori Festival and the award for Best Group at the 2018 KBS Korean Traditional Music Awards, and they’ve performed at famous festivals, including WOMEX (World Music Expo) 2019 and globalFEST 2020, through which they also featured on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert. ADG7 has even received favorable reviews from NPR Music, Songlines Magazine, and the New York Times.
The Mitchell Museum has asked us to share this petition with all our Members! Please take a moment to read about this incident that happened when a young person was not permitted to walk in his high school graduation ceremony at Evanston Township High School because he was wearing sacred Indigenous beads and an eagle feather with his graduation cap and gown.
You can find the petition started by his family here.
We are looking for Members to participate in our annual MOSAIC gala on Monday, August 8, at the Chicago History Museum, through Activation Tables. At these interactive stations, a representative from your organization will be stationed during the reception to demonstrate an activity or share objects/photos/items that represent your culture and your connection to the Chicago Cultural Alliance. For example, in the past we have had someone playing a traditional instrument, someone doing traditional calligraphy, someone doing henna painting, or someone sharing objects from their archives.
A small stipend is available for participating.
To apply, please complete the information listed below on a Word Doc (.docx) or PDF and email it to [email protected] with “Activation Table” in the subject line no later than 5pm CT on Monday, May 16.
Activation Tables are a way to showcase the programming of your organizations and your partnership with the Chicago Cultural Alliance to our vast network of donors.
These tables should be inspired by either a project, program, or service that Chicago Cultural Alliance has run and has served your organization, or an event or program you organized in collaboration with the Alliance. For example, you could share photos or artifacts from your archives, which connect to the Conservation and Collections Program. You could have someone doing a craft demonstration or musical performance that they have previously done during Inherit Chicago or Journey Chicago.
At the tables, representatives from your organization will be stationed to talk about your programs, your organization, and your connection to the Alliance.
Please fill in the details below for your proposed activation table and additional notes you can share with guests of the MOSAIC Gala. Feel free to share any other details about your programming and organization!
COMPLETE THIS INFORMATION:
Your Organization:
Primary Contact(s) Name, Email:
Representatives at Table:
Program Activity:
How it is connected to the Chicago Cultural Alliance:
Colleen McGaughey (she/her) is the director of development at the National Public Housing Museum, where she leads the strategic direction of the museum’s fundraising efforts with a focus on creative and community-centric approaches.
Mario Longoni
Board Member
Mario Longoni is a cultural anthropologist (“Lead Environmental Social Scientist”) in the Keller Science Action Center at the Field Museum. For over 20 years, he has worked with individuals and organizations to surface and activate cultural and natural assets (specific strengths and characteristics) to help communities meet the challenges they face.
Rob Fojtik
Board Member
Rob Fojtik is Vice President for Neighborhood Strategy at Choose Chicago, the city’s official tourism and convention promotion bureau. In this capacity, Rob oversees efforts to promote and support Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods to visitors from near and far. Programs include the award-winning Neighborhood Content Creator program that leverages resident-made digital content, and Chicago Alfresco, a $2.5 million placemaking initiative created in partnership with the Chicago Department of Transportation to transform public spaces into community plazas for outdoor enjoyment.
Before coming to Choose Chicago, Rob was a Senior Advisor to Mayor Lightfoot on economic development and international relations at City Hall, as well as LGTBQ+ affairs and the expanded outdoor dining program. In this role, he also worked to recommend and place over 150 civic leaders and residents onto City boards and commissions. Prior to government service in the Lightfoot administration, Rob ran her winning campaign in the crowded 2019 Chicago mayoral race as Chief of Staff. In past lives, Rob has worked as a public affairs manager for a Fortune 500 company downtown; had misadventures in management consulting, art sales, and personal cheffing; and spent time in Washington DC working for former Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Rob also served a one-year appointment at the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence as a policy advisor on Central and Eastern Europe. In this role, he was part of the NSC’s interagency process to develop a comprehensive sanctions regime on Russia as a consequence of its 2014 invasion of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.
After receiving his BA in Slavic Languages and Literature at Northwestern University, Rob lived and worked in the Czech Republic teaching English and tending bar before moving to Washington, D.C. to pursue a MA from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies (CERES). He enjoys cooking, learning foreign languages, hiking with his partner and their dog, and visiting Chicago’s many neighborhoods.
Paul Durica
Board Member
Dr. Paul Durica is the Director of Exhibitions at the Chicago History Museums and worked in a similar capacity at The Newberry Library. From 2015-2020, he served as the Director of Programs and Exhibitions with Illinois Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Prior to that he drew upon his work as a writer, researcher, and teacher to produce a series of free and interactive talks, walks, and reenactments focused on narratives from Chicago’s past that resonate with its present.
These public history programs led to collaborations with cultural institutions in the city such as the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Chicago History Museum, Newberry Library, Chicago Architecture Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Chicago Cultural Center among others.
Each program made use of both his original research and the skills of the arts organizations, community groups, local businesses, and publications that acted as my partners. Some of these programs, such as the full-scale reenactment of the Haymarket Affair in 2011, involved recruiting and directing over 300 volunteers and 1,000 participants.
To produce these programs successfully, he wrote grants; managed budgets; generated web content; worked closely with program partners of varying sizes and resources; and identified, engaged, and sustained a diverse multi-generational audience.
Lynessa Rico
Board Member
Dr. Lynessa M. Rico is the Associate Chair of the Business Psychology Department at the The Chicago School of Professional Psychology Chicago campus. She is also a business mentor at 1871.
Lynessa is a results-driven Strategic Consultant with over 25 years of experience enabling leaders to meet strategic business objectives by identifying and aligning business growth opportunities with strategic direction of culturally diverse organizations. By leveraging her strategic experience in identifying and impacting business growth opportunities and maximizing profits in retail firms and higher education institutions, Lynessa leads workshops focused on the creative mindset, women’s entrepreneurship, emotional intelligence, and the value and application of design thinking within entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Her services also include consulting with and educating leadership on emotional intelligence, the power of design thinking and the creative mindset, and leadership styles to support inclusive, creative workplaces. She has presented to leadership and innovation teams in small, mid-size, and Fortune 500 companies.
Lynessa received her undergraduate degrees in Marketing and Management from Wichita State University. She then went on to earn a master’s degree in Business Administration from Wichita State University with a focus in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. After earning her master’s degree, Lynessa received her doctorate in Business Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology where she successfully completed her dissertation titled, “The Relationship Between Personality Types and Color Preference for Color Combinations.” Her current research interests include women’s entrepreneurship, design thinking, creativity, emotional intelligence, and entrepreneurship self-efficacy.
Outside of work and research, Lynessa enjoys mentoring start-ups and judging pitch competitions. Lynessa currently resides in Chicago, Illinois with her four cats. She is an avid long-distance runner, having completed 5 full marathons (and counting), and enjoys watching musical theater.
Briana Thomas
Board Member
Briana Thomas is the Museum Associate at the Abrahamic Center for Cultural Education (a core member of the Chicago Cultural Alliance). She wears many hats including developing exhibition content, facilitating community programs (children and adults), liaising with visitor artists, and other responsibilities. Her previous experience in the nonprofit space includes her tenure as the Financial Empowerment Coordinator at AMERICORPS Sharing Life Center as well as engaging with the public at the Dallas Arboretum. Her past professional experience has remained rooted in marginalized communities. It is their needs,discourse and histories that she has routinely been tasked with protecting and showcasing in the face of poor infrastructure, and willing ignorance. Creating safe spaces is an ancestral practice she has inherited.
