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Here at FFC, we believe in acknowledging and empowering not just our outstanding members and teams, but supporting diversity, inclusion, and equity in our communities. Keep reading on to learn about five organizations in Chicago that we are highlighting in celebration of Black History Month!

Affinity Community Services

Affinity Community Services is a Black-led, queer-led organization dedicated to social justice in Black LGBTQ+ communities. Since 1995, Affinity has centered Black queer women through community organizing, intergenerational programming, education, and healing justice.

They work to end the marginalization of Black LGBTQ+ people globally by building brave activist communities where all intersections of LGBTQ+ identity are fully embraced. Through activism, education, and transformative justice practices, we build avenues for collective action, LGBTQ+ justice, healing, and Black liberation. Learn more here.

Brave Space Alliance

Brave Space Alliance is the first Black-led, trans-led LGBTQ+ Center located on the South Side of Chicago, dedicated to creating and providing affirming, culturally competent, for-us by-us resources, programming, and services for LGBTQ+ individuals on the South and West sides of the city. BSA strives to empower, embolden, and educate each other through mutual aid, knowledge-sharing, and the creation of community-sourced resources as we build toward the liberation of all oppressed peoples. Learn more here.

Coffee, Hip-Hop, & Mental Health

Coffee, Hip-Hop, & Mental Health is a 501c3 Charitable Organization working to bring awareness to the importance of mental health, emotional intelligence and self-awareness to one’s quality of life, particularly in the Black community. Their primary service is to provide access to mental health and therapeutic services by removing the financial, systemic and emotional barriers which prevent healing. Learn more here.

My Block My Hood My City

My Block My Hood My City is building a better Chicago one neighbor, one act of service, one block at a time. On their website, My Block My Hood My City explains, “we show up to do the work no one else is doing, in a way no one else can. We hear the call of our communities and we are rising up to answer. When we build community connections across Chicago, our city becomes happier, healthier, and safer.” Learn more here.

Urban Grower’s Collective

Urban Growers Collective is a Black- and women-led non-profit farm in Chicago working to build a more just and equitable local food system. They aim to address the inequities and structural racism that exist in the food system and in communities of color. Rooted in growing food, Urban Growers Collective’s mission is to cultivate nourishing environments which support health, economic development, healing, and creativity through urban agriculture.

They provide hands-on job training and create economic opportunities for youth, beginner BIPOC farmers, and men who are at high risk for gun violence. Their aim is to provide jobs while working to mitigate food insecurity and limited access to affordable, culturally-affirming, and nutritionally-dense food. Learn more here.