Skateboard Building in Brightmoor
On a chilly Saturday in December, in the art room at Detroit Community High School (DCH), Jesse Wilson, New York Director of the Chill Foundation, led a free skateboard-building workshop.
Since its founding in 1995, the Chill Foundation has been dedicated to working with underserved youth to build confidence and life skills through board sports. Undergraduate students from the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan, high school students from DCH and Brightmoor residents attended the workshop and enjoyed a 4-hour design/build session together. The workshop is one of many examples of the way the Stamps School is connecting with the Brightmoor community through the Brightmoor Maker Space.
Opening its brick-and-mortar operations in winter 2017, the Brightmoor Maker Space nurtures creative enterprises and provides a community space for developing skills. Co-founded by Stamps School of Art & Design and Detroit Community Schools and led by professor Nick Tobier and DCH co-founder Bart Eddy, the maker space brings residents of Brightmoor, members of the Stamps community, and makers from throughout the region to engage in urban revitalization through acts of making and entrepreneurial incubation.
Stamps Professor Nick Tobier hosted Jesse Wilson thanks to funding from the Stamps School’s Witt Visitors program and through generous foundation support of the Brightmoor Maker Space. In fall 2016, the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan received generous support from the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation to fund programming at the Brightmoor Maker Space at Detroit Community High School. The Fisher Foundation joined the Ford Motor Company, UAW Ford, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Michigan Economic Development Corporation, The Skillman Foundation, The Peck Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts to support Brightmoor Maker Space programming.
Learn more about the Chill Foundation and the Brightmoor Maker Space.