LUV INSTITUTE CELEBRATES 10 YEARS

Cosette Nazon-Wilburn is the Founder and Executive Director of the LUV Institute. LUV Institute is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a walk and bike tour of the Parade of Hearts. PHOTO BY TIA CAROL JONES.
Cosette Nazon-Wilburn is the Founder and Executive Director of the LUV Institute. LUV Institute is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a walk and bike tour of the Parade of Hearts. PHOTO BY TIA CAROL JONES.

 LUV INSTITUTE CELEBRATES 10 YEARS

BY TIA CAROL JONES

Cosette Nazon-Wilburn founded the Love, Unity and Values (LUV) Institute in 2012 with the purpose of helping young people who were struggling with socio-emotional learning competence.

To celebrate the organization’s 10th year, LUV Institute is hosting a Parade of Hearts Tour.

The tour will take place on Saturday , Sept. 10th, starting at Mandrake Park, located at 3858 S. Cottage Grove.

The bike and walk tour will take place from 9 a.m. to noon. The celebration will take place from noon to 2 p.m. The Parade of Hearts was an artistic endeavor of the LUV Institute, created in 2021, which consists of 12 five-foot heart sculptures, designed and decorated by
local artists and are on display in 12 communities.

The bike and walk tour features nine of the hearts, located on the South side of Chicago, from Little Village to Chatham.

Nazon-Wilburn said the Parade of Hearts was an opportunity to train community members about the power of restorative practices. Restorative practices at the foundation of LUV Institute is a set of tools that help you heal through the power of listening.

Instead of having a party to celebrate, LUV Institute we wanted to celebrate the community by bringimg attention to the Parade of Hearts. The hope that people will learn from the “project with a purpose.” “I wanted to do something different, where I could encourage people with great imagery and really teach how do we
communicate and connect with one another,” Nazon-Wilburn said.

The Parade of Hearts is expanding to the West side and into more communities on the South side. Nazon-Wilburn hopes that people who love the hearts will bid on them at auction. That will help the LUV Institute raise the funds for the next set of hearts. Eventually, she wants the hearts to be in all 77 neighborhoods in the
city of Chicago.

“It will be a symbol of hope and restoration of how people are envisioning a new normal after the pandemic,” she said.

Nazon-Wilburn also wants to attract 24 new artists to design and decorate the new set of hearts that will go on display in communities.

“We’re hoping that we will have artists representative of all of those communities that will really help us share the message that will restore Chicago to what we believe that it can be, a place of peace and love,” she said.

The LUV Institute has received positive feedback from the Parade of Hearts. It has given the organization the encouragement to figure out what else it can do. The organization also has 14 arts installations in school. The Parade of Hearts was an opportunity to bring the same messaging to the communities. They were surprised
to see how well it was received.

The LUV Institute’s core work is in providing a socioemotional learning approach to young men and women of color and to prepare them for the workforce. It does that in five different programs, Journey to Better Self Career Academy, Journey to Better Self Artistic Expression Program, Journey to Better Self Media
Empowerment Program, Journey to Better Self College
Empowerment Program and Journey to Better Self Entrepreneurship Program. Other programs include LUV
Restorative Practice Training, LUV Restorative Practice
Training and Certification and LUV Brain-Based Teaching
and Learning Strategies.

“We are a partner with the community , so we are always doing things that raise the voice of young people and provide opportunities that they may not have. I think that what makes us different is we really focus on restorative practice and brain-based strategies as a
way to reduce brain stressors and to really empower young people so they can re-engage into their resiliency when they’re impacted by trauma,” Nazon-W ilburn said, People can register for the tour by visiting www . luvinstitute.org.

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