upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024

upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024

Lois Fernandez

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2009 Leeway Transformation Award – $15,000

Lois is the founder of ODUNDE, a community festival that started 34 years ago as an alternative cultural response to the gang wars prevalent throughout the city in the mid-1970s. ODUNDE has been the major focus of her art for social change work. As a practice of reclaiming culture and space, the festival came out of Lois’s growing cultural awareness and sense of responding to community need. Inspired by Yoruba processions and culture, from the start she sought to create a festival where African Americans could see the beauty in celebrating themselves by showcasing the best of African culture, music, dance, and crafts. Lois began working in civil service jobs in the mid 1950’s, fighting discrimination and using her experiences of cultural awareness to foster change. The political and cultural vision of ODUNDE demonstrates a liberated vision about individuals and their community, as well as how conditions can be changed to support that vision.  Involving a primarily volunteer staff of more than 200 people and bringing upwards of a half-million people together on the second Sunday every June, ODUNDE is a true community gathering, an economic development tool, a cultural enrichment tool, an integral part of many extended family annual festivals, and a model for other African community celebrations around the country. To document the festival, Lois collaborated with filmmakers Tina Morton and Warren Bass on documentaries about the festival in 2006 and 1990, respectively. Most recently, she has had to be increasingly vigilant in fighting City Hall and gentrifying neighbors opposing her community’s right to assemble.

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Leeway grant?

Window of Opportunity Grant

The Window of Opportunity (WOO) grant provides financial assistance of up to $1,500 to Leeway grant and award recipients to help them take advantage of imminent, time-sensitive opportunities to support their art for social change practice. The Community Care Fund (CCF) provides financial assistance of up to $1,250 to Leeway grant and award recipients to support with immediate and essential emergency needs. [read more]

deadline
Upcoming events
04/025:30 pm - 7:00 pm

4/2 Transformation Award (LTA) Awardee Panel + Info Session (In Person)

Have questions about the application process for the Leeway Transformation Award (LTA)?

[learn more]

04/185:30 pm - 6:30 pm

4/18 Transformation Award (LTA) Info Session (Virtual)

Have questions about the application process for the Leeway Transformation Award?

[learn more]