Friday, December 3, 2010

Map Gallery Online, By Popular Demand!

As readers of this blog know, we at Tutor/Mentor Connection(T/MC) have spent the past several years using maps to identify and analyze areas of our city where support for at-risk youth needs to grow, in order to make our students brighter, our workforce stronger, and our streets safer.

T/MC maps indicate areas and neighborhoods where at-risk youth might need additional support in their studies and life direction. The maps then try to reveal available resources that local tutor/mentor programs and community leaders can mobilize to improve that new support for students.

Thanks to everyone who came to see the “Mapping Solutions” art at Webster Wine Bar this past month, and who provided feedback about what they saw. The response was incredible actually, from servers who told me they never saw so many people stop to look at art work in the gallery before, to the many local business owners and mapping professionals who suggested I take the gallery “on the road.” (Stay tuned!)

Of course not everyone could make it to the border of the Lincoln Park and Bucktown neighborhoods of Chicago, so by popular demand (thanks to everyone who asked to see pictures), I’ve decided to put the gallery online this month.

As I put the maps up, I will explain the reason I chose to feature these “samples” of what we can do with T/MC map technologies. This will serve to demonstrate our current mapping capacity, hopefully get you thinking a bit about how you could use the map (and what additional cities and neighborhoods you'd like to explore), and hopefully lead to a discussion of how we can find the investment needed in 2011 to use state-of-the-art GIS technology to better support students and the non-profits who serve them.

If the response at the gallery was an indicator, you don’t want to miss this month’s “Mapping For Justice” blog installments. So go ahead and subscribe or bookmark us!

And check back this weekend for the first set of “Mapping Solutions” gallery maps.

Onward friends!


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We at Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) have spent the past several years using maps to identify and analyze areas of our city where support for at-risk youth needs to grow, in order to make our students brighter, our workforce stronger, and our streets safer.

We operate on a non-profit budget and rely on donations and charity to continue our work, using state-of-the-art GIS technologies in support of our community-based mission.

Please consider a small tax-deductible donation to this important charity this holiday season.

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