Strategy: Culture

Unshakeable Motherhood

Her Dreams is a powerful cinematic project and community campaign examining the deep-rooted maternal health disparities affecting Black women in Pittsburgh and across the United States. What began as a short film has evolved into a broader long-form cinematic film designed to spark dialogue, influence policy, and mobilize community-based solutions around maternal and infant health.

Through intimate storytelling, Her Dreams explores the intersection of culturally competent care, socioeconomic realities, and systemic barriers that shape the most vulnerable moments of pregnancy and childbirth. The film reveals how unequal access to care and implicit bias within healthcare systems continue to affect Black mothers and their babies—while also highlighting the resilience, advocacy, and community leadership that emerge in response.

At the center of the Her Dreams campaign is the long-form film, which expands on the stories introduced in the short film. The project follows a series of interconnected narratives that illuminate the lived experiences surrounding Black motherhood: a birth doula and her partner navigating the emotional and financial realities of sustaining their calling; a NICU mother fighting fiercely for her baby’s life; an expectant mother preparing to cross the threshold into parenthood; the birth worker holding space in systems that often overlook Black women; and a policymaker grappling with the responsibility of creating change within institutions that have historically failed Black families.

Together, these stories reveal the emotional, spiritual, and economic weight carried by Black women throughout pregnancy, birth, and postpartum recovery. Rather than simply documenting hardship, Her Dreams centers the voices, courage, and determination of the women and birth workers who refuse to give up on Black mothers and babies.

The film campaign is not only a storytelling project—it is a platform for advocacy and action. Community screenings, panel discussions, and educational workshops accompany the film to foster dialogue between families, healthcare providers, policymakers, and community leaders. These conversations aim to expand awareness, strengthen culturally responsive care models, and support grassroots maternal health initiatives.

Supporting this work is Unshakeable Motherhood, a community-centered initiative dedicated to strengthening support systems for mothers during pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period. Unshakeable Motherhood focuses on education, advocacy, and community-based resources that empower mothers to navigate healthcare systems while prioritizing rest, healing, and family stability. Through partnerships with doulas, community organizations, and public health programs, the initiative works to bridge gaps in care by connecting mothers to culturally affirming support, nutrition resources, and postpartum recovery services.

Together, the Her Dreams film campaign and the Unshakeable Motherhood initiative create a powerful ecosystem of storytelling and service—one that amplifies the voices of Black mothers, highlights the role of community birth workers, and calls for a more just and compassionate maternal healthcare system.

At its heart, Her Dreams is both a love letter and a call to action—honoring the women who continue to advocate for Black mothers and babies while demanding a future where every mother is seen, heard, and supported.

 

Her Dreams 2026 Teaser & Cast Sneak Peek
https://galleries.vidflow.co/vojj6b3u

 

Visible Hands

Visible Hands creates a cohort of community mental health workers who are certified to perform ICT, a unique form of community therapy that requires only short-term training, can accommodate groups from 15-200 people, and can be performed successfully in an online format.

 

 

Seasons Project- DEMASKUS Theater Collective

Note on Commercial Theater by Langston Hughes

You’ve taken my blues and gone

You sing ’em on Broadway

And you sing ’em in Hollywood Bowl,

And you mix them up with symphonies

And you fix ’em

So they don’t sound like me.

Yep, you done taken my blues and gone.

 

You also took spirituals and gone.

You put me in Macbeth and Carmen Jones

And all kinds of Swing Mikados

And in everything but what’s about me

But someday somebody’ll

Stand up and talk about me,

And write about me

Black and beautiful

And sing about me,

And put on plays about me!

I reckon it’ll be

Me myself!

Yes, it’ll be me.

 

DEMASKUS is a national service-oriented collective of artists and administrators seeking to make known the messages of the marginalized. We achieve this through the production and presentation of quality, compassionate, and inclusive artistic events. Everything around us is changing, but our purpose has not. Now more than ever, we must share profound truths from formally marginalized voices that refuse to go unheard and may even offer solutions and solace in a world in dire need of uncompromising reminders of what makes us most humane.

Most Christians will immediately associate DEMASKUS with Damascus–the Syrian capital that is home to the road where Saul of Tarsus had his transformative encounter with God. God struck Saul blind and confronted him about his past. High-born and scholarly, Saul was prone to violence toward early adopters of Christianity. The Collective’s name embodies the idea of revealing the truths that lie beneath the mask(s) of our own blind behavior and beliefs. Art, at its best, helps us to rethink and reimagine that which we think we know. Consciously removing a metaphorical mask certainly requires self-examination. (Based on an exchange with DTC member the Rev. Dr. Leah Lewis, J.D., alluding to Acts 9:1-8). Another source of inspiration for our work is the historic and notable poem, We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Whatever the masks you wear, we invite you to lay them down and join us on a journey filled with crossroads, but free from the expectations and oppressive standards of others. Our art is about us, made by us at times and is always for us.  There is freedom here. Welcome home.

 

Images: You Wouldn’t Expect Production Photos © Martha Rial
Images: WINE IN THE WILDERNESS- Production Photos © Sager McDill

 

Donate Here

Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books

OUR MISSION

The Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books (GPFB) showcases Pittsburgh’s historic, vital role on the national and international literary stage.   Readers, writers, booksellers, publishers, critics, educators, and neighbors will connect with, learn from, and support each other. With free, diverse programming featuring nationally recognized authors (many living in Western Pennsylvania), and across age, genre, and background, the Festival will celebrate the joys of literacy.

WHY PITTSBURGH?

Pittsburgh is a city filled with both national best-selling authors and budding writers, as well as established literary organizations; university presses; publishers of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction; independent and used bookstores; an active literary and arts community; and readers of all ages.

An annual Pittsburgh book festival will tie all these assets together in one celebration. What’s more, book fairs and festivals create and support a community of readers, attract all ages, introduce and enhance a lifelong love of literature in young readers. 

 

Donate Here

Pittsburgh Restaurant Workers Aid

Pittsburgh Restaurant Workers Aid provides resources and community support to low-wage restaurant and hospitality workers who have lost financial, housing, food, and healthcare security. Built as a coalition of service industry workers in response to the economic distress caused by COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, our goal is to create a mutual aid network that can address immediate needs, through this crisis and beyond, by distributing food, baby necessities, pet care items, cleaning and hygiene products, and small emergency cash grants.

In response to the closure of dine-in facilities in Allegheny County on March 15th, we partnered with the Irma Freeman Center in Garfield to set up the Pittsburgh Restaurant Workers Aid Food Distribution Center. Since then, we have delivered close to 400 care packages to the front doors of low-wage restaurant workers in the region, from our next door neighbors to folks in neighboring counties. Our Food Distribution Center acts as a hub to collect donations from community members and partner organizations, assemble care packages, serve meals, allow neighbors to pick up groceries, and send out volunteer drivers with deliveries. These resources will aid low-wage neighbors to maintain food security for themselves and their families during times of need.

Through reaching out to our greater community for support, the folks who eat at our tables and celebrate at our bars, the communities around us that benefit from the vibrant culture created in our dining rooms and on our stages, we will be able to better recover from these hard times and welcome our guests back with open arms.

Make Music Pittsburgh

Make Music Pittsburgh’s mission is to connect all Pittsburgh community members, regardless of age, musical experience, or ability, to make and enjoy music every summer solstice, while also encouraging further participation in music-making.

Every year on June 21st, Pittsburgh neighborhoods are filled with music making opportunities. Make Music Pittsburgh aims to enhance the cultural vibrancy of every neighborhood in Pittsburgh by supporting the existing musical events, music friendly venues, and citizens interested in participatory music making opportunities. They facilitate events to play music outdoors and celebrate the joy and curiosity music can bring a community.

Make Music Pittsburgh aims to build a city where all community members are enabled to make music and feel connected and supported in their musical engagement.

Brown Mamas

What started out as a group of moms meeting in a living room has grown into a community of over 6400 Black moms in the Pittsburgh region, and over 10,000 moms nationally.

That day in early summer, a few women gathered to talk about their common struggles and joys in raising Black children. Muffy was at the tail end of fighting postpartum depression and felt she’d found her tribe. The small gathering transformed to a Facebook group where moms could vent, ask for support and find each other.  That Facebook group grew into programs that support the social and emotional needs of mothers.  The stories spilling out of these interactions built a stage where moms can liberate themselves by sharing their stories with the masses through the Brown Mama Monologues.

Today, Brown Mamas is so much more than a group of moms.  It is a testament to their original idea that making moms better moms, makes dads better dads, children become better adults and, ultimately, communities become better communities.

Donate Here

Contact Us
hello@brownmamas.com

RiverWise

RiverWise is a newly launched initiative in Beaver County focused on using our rivers and their surrounding communities as wisely as possible. At the heart of this work is a concerted effort to organize stakeholders to dream, learn, and collaborate about the future of our rivers. We are encouraging this process in two ways. First, we are forming ecodistricts in three communities (Aliquippa, Monaca, and Beaver Falls). Second, we are conducting community assessments in a handful of river facing communities (to be determined) aimed at growing the infrastructure on the rivers, creating access to the rivers, and generating meaningful connections between the rivers and the communities through which they flow.

It’s been an exciting first year for RiverWise and its growing list of partners. We’ve learned, dreamed, and collaborated together about the future of our region. We’ve set in place some very exciting projects. And we’ve bolstered relationships born out of shared vision and purpose. Take a look at this year-end retrospective of the work of our partners.

Watch the RiverWise Year One Video

The Future of Petrochemicals in Western Pennsylvania – A Community Perspective

Three weeks ago, on October 30, 2019, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto publicly announced his opposition to additional petrochemical development in Western Pennsylvania. Responses to the Mayor’s comments were substantial and swift, quickly generating the kind of polarization that has become all too familiar in public discourse about important and contentious topics.

To date, the vast majority of voices speaking into this matter have come from outside of Beaver County, home to the most substantial petrochemical buildout in Western Pennsylvania. When Beaver County voices have been present in this conversation, little attention has been paid to the complex issues faced by community members who are most affected by regional decision making. This document seeks to widen the terms of the ongoing conversation, bringing to bear insight gained from working alongside more than fifty community organizations and several hundred residents who are seeking wisely to navigate the quickly changing landscape that is Beaver County.

Make no mistake: Beaver County is forging a new path for our future. We are embracing competence and vision, moving toward wisdom, and enacting principled change. Continue reading…

Vigilance Theater Group

Vigilance is an immersive theater group dedicated to creating intimate, experiential productions. Drawing inspiration from high art and pop culture alike, Vigilance is determined to explore the boundaries and possibilities of the growing immersive theater movement.

Currently, Vigilance is preparing the second-play in a three-play series, “The Moon Phase,” about power and memory in a world overseen by guardian spirits. The first show, “Hollow Moon,” had a sold-out run in November of 2018; in it, twelve strangers gathered in a historic (and possibly haunted) house for a deadly game. In “Welcome to Moonside,” which will premiere in August, a group of chosen humans are called to the otherworldly place filled with conflicted spirits, to try and save the ghosts from a grim fate.

All of Vigilance’s productions put the audience at the center of the action, treating our patrons as characters in the show. Our audiences don’t merely observe the events around them; they have the chance to interact, explore and even change the outcome of each show. It’s our goal to provide an experience that’s equal parts theatrical and interactive.

PGH Map Lab

PGH Map Lab is a social enterprise that empowers neighborhoods, non-profits, and municipalities to make data-driven decisions through the creation of maps, apps, and storytelling tools. We are motivated by healthy, equitable, resilient communities. It is our belief that a holistic approach to community development starts with good planning, which requires the best data possible. Our interest is to help organizations and municipalities find, use, and analyze this data to make better informed decisions.

PGH Map Lab is dedicated to enhancing the GIS capacity of individuals and organizations for the benefit of the greater good. Our vision of the Map Lab is an accessible, hand on learning space to test out innovative geospatial and data technologies. We will connect social justice, art, environment, and land use planning through the use of maps. It is our hope that these unique applications will provide clear communication and positively impacting local communities.

Melanin Mommies

Melanin Mommies Pgh, Inc is an organization that centers historically marginalized African American, pregnant or parenting mothers. Our goal is to assist these mothers to address and overcome intergenerational trauma and combat negative family cycles through connection to resources, mental health advocacy and mentorship.

Beauty in Brokenness

Beauty in Brokenness is a peer mentoring program that gives women the tools to create a safe space that will allow them to address life issues such as self-care, relationships, and an intentional spiritual journey beyond self.

Through a community-centered support system focused on teaching preventive measures to help strengthen families, the program promotes healing and wholeness that targets the decline of out of home placements for children.