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Celebrating Black Architects

10/25/2020

Over the years, Sweet Blackberry has shared history on the barriers many African Americans had to cross to receive an adequate education. But once, that education was received, there were still rules in place barring Black people from jobs regardless of their talent. Architecture was one of those professions.

Still today, African American architects make up only 2% of all licensed architects in the U.S. African American women make up 0.3%. In this post, Sweet Blackberry celebrates these pioneers by showcasing their achievements. You may also read more about the impact racism has, and continues to have, on this profession here.

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Virtual Summer Camp: Sweet Blackberry x The Fresh Air Fund

10/20/2020

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By: Jai Rodriguez

2020 is the year of creativity. This year creativity isn't only for artists and musicians; it's for
anyone with an idea and MORE than enough time to bring it to life. Usually, we would be spending our summers deep in the woods and enjoying the company of our camp family; unfortunately, due to the coronavirus pandemic, we were not able to do so. So we made a switch to online Summer Camp! This summer, The Fresh Air Fund had the opportunity to work with Sweet Blackberry and bring their idea to life in our own special fresh airway.

You can only imagine the excitement on all of our camper's faces when they discovered that they would be not only be carrying out this project but getting to have their own Q&A session with Karyn Parsons.

Deciding who we will be basing our project on was a challenge. We had so many options to
choose from. After a few voting sessions, we finally had our winner; it was no other than The Queen of Jazz herself, Ella Fitzgerald. Ella is a very well-known jazz singer, so campers wanted to ensure her full story was told as one camper said, "Ella is like an onion with so many layers."

All campers were divided into four groups ScriptWriting, Storyboarding, marketing and
educational assets. They were responsible for fulfilling the requirements in each group to ensure their vision for the video. They divided and conquered each obstacle that came their way. They made sure everyone was involved in each creative decision and recalculated whenever an idea they had didn't work out. It was a beautiful sight to watch as a facilitator.

`The premiere of their Project was also their very last day of virtual summer camp. Overall,
campers enjoyed their time working on this project and were ecstatic with its results. It was a bittersweet ending to our summer, and everything fell into place beautifully.

Ella Fitzgerald_Fresh Air Fund Project on Vimeo.

Check out their Ella inspired at-home activities found on our website here.

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Celebrating Black Architects

Virtual Summer Camp: Sweet Blackberry x The Fresh Air Fund

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