Storefront Welcomes New Executive Director and Youth Innovation Director

Storefront for Community Design is excited to announce the selection of Shawn Balon as its new Executive Director.

Shawn brings a wealth of experience in design, non-profit, and educational environments with expanded knowledge of organizational management and strategic planning. He has the strategic vision necessary to elevate Storefront for Community Design and its programs in the years to come and will bring a creative, innovative, and collaborative approach when working with staff, board members, donors, partners, volunteers, and the community-at-large.

“I appreciate the board’s confidence in me, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to lead such a great organization. It will take innovative and purposeful solutions to create a path for Storefront for Community Design to continue addressing the challenges in our communities, and I look forward to advancing my efforts to focus on the importance of participatory design to honor differences, challenge injustices, and create vibrant neighborhoods,” said Balon.

In addition to the arrival of our new Executive Director, we are thrilled to welcome Kai Banks as the new Youth Innovation Director. Kai has extensive experience working in communities around the City of Richmond for the past seven years and has connected with various partners, businesses, and organizations to manage and supervise programs that bring social change to youth and families. She brings exceptional communication skills, leadership, and innovative thinking and is prepared to analyze needs and create unique solutions designed to provide growth to the community.

“I am honored to join Storefront for Community Design as Director of the Highland Park Six Points Innovation Center (6PIC) to develop equitable and culturally responsive strategies in conjunction with the community and other partners. I am committed to bridging the gap for marginalized communities by listening to their needs and providing education, opportunity, and resources so they can accomplish their goals,” said Banks.

Shawn assumed his duties as Executive Director on January 4 and we welcome Kai to her duties as 6PIC Director on January 19. We are excited to introduce our dynamic team of Board of Directors and staff to elevate Storefront’s mission in the coming years.

As we celebrate our 10th anniversary this year, we reflect upon the progress we’ve made to assist in creating more equitable communities. At Storefront, we believe design, when guided by community priorities, has the power to offer tangible solutions to community challenges. We will continue to provide a space for stakeholders to gather and engage in bold and difficult conversations with the goal of creating new models of leadership and community engagement around neighborhood development.

We have provided a link to our press release announcing Shawn, Kai, and our ten year anniversary.

In Community,

Bernard Harkless
Board Chair

Shawn Balon, Executive Director (left); Kai Banks, Youth Innovation Director (right)
images: Kim Peters

About Shawn Balon
Shawn has worked in the design, education, and non-profit sectors throughout the U.S. Prior to joining Storefront for Community Design, his work as a landscape architect and urban designer provided experience domestically and internationally combining graphic communications, conceptual design, community engagement, master planning, and project management. At the American Society of Landscape Architects, Shawn developed and managed the career discovery and diversity strategic work plan increasing awareness of design career opportunities to youth. At the George Washington University and Reynolds Community College he served as adjunct professor where he taught technical and drawing courses. Shawn graduated from Clemson University with a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture Degree and received a Master of Science in Urban Design Degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

About Kai Banks
Kai is a Richmond native. She is currently attending Virginia Commonwealth University pursuing her Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science with a Non-Profit Management minor. Banks is an AmeriCorps (ACES) Action for Enhancement Services Alum. During her term with ACES, she served as a co-conspirator for several non-profit organizations including The Relationship Foundation of Virginia, Girls for a Change, Higher Achievement, and the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club under the strengthening families’ initiative. She is a trained facilitator on an array of topics such as conflict resolution, trauma, social change, food access, and healthy relationships. Most recently, as an Outreach Specialist for the Richmond Food Justice Alliance, her efforts have been focused on inclusive community engagement around healthy food access and policy.

New Year, New Skills

This semester, Storefront is running a series of monthly workshops for youth at the Six Points Innovation Center (6PIC). Youth will learn design skills tailored to the needs of the space and themselves. Last night we learned how to stitch together notebooks and wrote messages to our future selves. The schedule for upcoming months includes:

February: Furniture Design

March: T-shirt Making Workshop

April: Typography Workshop

May: Logo Workshop

6PIC Center Director, Jackie Washington, Named Robert Wood Johnson Culture of Health Leader

Storefront for Community Design is excited to announce that Jacqulyn “Jackie” Washington, center director of the Six Points Innovation Center (6PIC), and community engagement liaison for Storefront for Community Design has been selected to participate in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Culture of Health Leadership program.  This program is designed to equip leaders across the country - in every sector and field - to collaborate, break down silos, and use their influence to make communities healthier and more equitable.

The Culture of Health Leadership Program fosters cross-sector collaboration and enables participants to remain in their homes and occupations while directly applying everything they learn to improving health policy and practice in their communities and organizations.  The three-year program provides participants with an annual stipend of up to $20,000.
As a member of the program’s newest cohort, Jackie will focus on community trauma and community healing for communities of color drawing on her social work background and her experiences working with young people at 6PIC. Jackie envisions a culture of health that unpacks the effects of contemporary and historical racism in the ways our communities have been shaped through planning and policy decisions.  This culture of health equips the next generation with the knowledge, skill, income, and time to participate in candid, resident-powered, place-based solutions that halt cycles of displacement and promote self-sustained healing.  Jackie will also benefit from a high caliber curricula, coaching from national leaders, collaboration with other cutting-edge thinkers from across the country,  and growing her ability to build healthier more resilient communities here in Richmond.  

“The Storefront for Community Design’s Board of Directors and continue to be inspired by the community-led work Jackie has embodied since joining the team in 2016,” said Storefront executive director, Ryan Rinn. “We’re even more excited to see the impact this opportunity will allow her to make in the City of Richmond. Over the next three years, Jackie will help shape the national conversation about our culture of health and build on Richmond’s 2017 Culture of Health Prize from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.”

6PIC turns 1!

6PIC's one year anniversary is June 6th! Come say Happy Birthday!
Join us on Wednesday, June 6th 5:30-8:00 for food, dancing, door prizes and 6PIC updates!

Can't meet us? There are still ways to support 6PIC and youth empowerment in Highland Park. Storefront for Community Design is celebrating 6PIC’s 1-year birthday by working to secure many more years of youth empowerment and community ownership in Highland Park.  
 
Join our 100x100 Challenge this June to raise funds for 6PIC’s operating costs (think: power, water, Internet + the amazing people that keep it running seamlessly every day).

It’s easy: be one of 100 people to give $100* to Storefront, so we can keep the 6PIC goodness flowing for years to come.
 
www.6picrva.org/donate/


*Any amount is much appreciated—we just like round numbers.  

6PIC Spring!

The Six Points Innovation Center's Spring programming has begun. Programming this semester includes Empowerment Hour, Green Team with GroundworkRVA, Lyrics and Beats, ArtStories, Multimedia Street Art, Blackademic in Residence, Design classes, Jobs for Life classes, and Higher Education Preparation and Assistance classes. There will also be various workshops and topics classes for teens in Highland Park who want to engage in arts, environment, advocacy, education & history. Six Points is also proud to launch the program, City Builders, which empowers youth to activism and understanding racism in city policy.

Learn more about 6PIC here and check out the spring calendar here.

Storefront to open youth-led collaborative in Highland Park

A bright light is on in a row of empty storefronts in the Highland Park neighborhood. It’s a Wednesday evening and a group of high schoolers are hovering around a table with markers, tracing paper, and floor plans of the 3000-square-foot space on Meadowbridge Road. Architect and Storefront board member Allison Powell hands a marker to one of these students, who elaborates on an idea for punctuating the cavernous space with bright colors and vertical text on the pillars. Another student chimes in with an idea to fill the parking lot with hammocks for reading. Everybody agrees on one thing: don’t build any walls here.

Potential location of the Six Points Innovation Center (6PIC) in the Highland Park neighborhood, the 3000 block of Meadowbridge Road.

This is a snapshot of the early phase of renovation for the 6 Points Innovation Center (6PIC), Storefront’s newest initiative supported by the Robins Foundation. Storefront will partner with Groundwork RVA, Saving Our Youth Virginia, Boaz & Ruth, and other organizations to create a new space for after school programming that operates at the intersection of design education and community engagement. Participants will enter the 6PIC as agents of change, and set the agenda for the community through design, planning, and organizing strategies. To start, the founding 6PIC team has been working closely with our team of architects to develop a conceptual design for the space.

Concept rendered by architect Burt Pinnock, based on sketches from the founding 6PIC team.

To make 6PIC a reality while sustaining our location in the Arts & Cultural District, we need your support. If it’s $500 or even $5, your donation is an investment in the ability for young people to connect more fully with urban planning and design. Storefront believes that design is not a luxury. Everyone should be able to realize the potential of the city — from the front porch, to the back yard, to the sidewalk, to the neighborhood.