Today we’d like to introduce you to Charlotte Lin.
Charlotte, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I started Seeds Center while in China – learning about how commonplace it was there to have senior colleges and while in my mid 20’s talking to family about future goals and priorities.
The unfortunate event of my grandfather’s hospitalization brought me there, but gave birth to Seeds Center.
As a very young child, my mother was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s and my parents had also divorced. My grandfather was a very important figure in my life for many reasons including those – and as he liked to tell it – however old I was, that’s how old he was in American years for 25 years.
That summer, my grandfather and my grandmother moved back to China permanently for the first time since my birth when in that same month my grandfather became extremely ill and we were told her might not make it – so I immediately took the first flight out to see him, obtaining myself an expedited, emergency VISA, and prepping everything I could think of for where I was working at the time.
I ended up staying 3 months helping take care of family and healing from episodes of my own mental conditions.
During that time, my grandmother encouraged me to write down my priorities and there Seeds Center was born. That moment in life helped me go for a huge and scary change that I might not have any time soon or ever at all or realized what direction I wanted to go in without her or any of the series of events like losing my job.
Slowly but surely, having started from complete scratch, we were able to launch our 1st completely free Inter-Generational program in 2017 and our 2nd is this Fall with hopes for a Duo Language Film and Media Class program open to all languages to launch in 2019 that brings non-English speaking students with English-bilingual partners who apply together for an experience to learn how to make their own short films and learn how to create their own media for them as well. We currently hold an annual Art Show and Fundraiser focused on the theme Learning Process and have plans for it again this coming May which funds for our pilot programs. From just me and 1 other instructor, we are now a team of 14 people, 10 of which are instructors each with a different focus for their specialty and teaching them during our Inter-Generational programs.
This year the deadline to apply for the “Inter-Gen” program is Sept 1st, but we are giving Voyage Chicago readers a special extension until Sept 9th -midnight. To learn more, interested applicants can apply at: https://seedscenter.org/free-intergen-program/
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Our biggest struggle has been in resources.
We are always seeking new ways of funding and for piloting new programs.
We currently are looking for:
Our ideal instructor is passionate about our mission, dedicated to sharing their craft and/or art form, student and experience oriented, and has a strong sense of responsibility. We continuously seek instructors in the creative and practical arts with our current focus on these 3 categories: musical arts, beauty-oriented arts, and the healing arts.
We are also currently looking to connect with activities and engagement staff within the buildings of Chicago’s Uptown/Andersonville/Edgewater areas in order to build report and mutually beneficial services to residents. We also seek to bring opportunities of participation for our current and upcoming programs.
Our ideal student is passionate about learning new things and likes to share them with others.
Our ideal new board member is highly motivated and driven by our mission and vision for the future and can offer expertise that is diverse from the members of the current board. If interested, please email me at charlotte@seedscenter.org
Please tell us about Seeds Center.
Well, we offer a website ( www.SeedsCenter.org ) for folks to sign up for classes and learn about our programs like those that we provide the community for free, but Seeds Center is, in essence, a multi-experience and multi-inter-generational learning hub for all to join. Our free “stepping stone” programs, which began in 2017, experiment and explore inclusive, connected, positive, and possible learning processes and viable options for the open public.
Seeds Center is currently rooted in the physical location of Unity Community Center of Unity Lutheran Church, an open and affirming institution, located in one of the most socioeconomically diverse areas in Chicago close to the micro-areas of the Asian community on Argyle in Uptown, the bustling Andersonville, and the Bryn Mawr Historic District.
While conventional learning in the US has been more segregated in terms of age and opportunity, less experience-based/hands-on, and less integrated across disciplines (particularly in the creative and “practical” realms), Seeds Center hopes to challenge such notions by creating change from the bottom up.
The theory is based on Seeds Center’s founding philosophy that learning is truly the key to thriving and if we instill the best ways to learn and plant them into the community, we can start to create unimaginable positive changes for our future.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I feel like my fondest childhood memories are always told me by others and I think the thing I like most about them is that they are ones these people close to me during my childhood like to tell.
Contact Info:
- Website: SeedsCenter.org
- Email: info@seedscenter.org
- Instagram: Instagram.com/SeedsCenter
- Facebook: Facebook.com/SeedsCenter
- Twitter: Twitter.com/SeedsCenter
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