Volunteer your professional skills or learn new ones at a Day of Service to benefit the Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago (FAHSC). Founded in 1986, FAHSC is a cultural institution with the mission to collect, record and preserve artifacts and documents of history of the Filipino Americans of metropolitan Chicago and to educate about Filipino American history and Philippine heritage. FAHS accepts donations from the Filipino American community around Chicago and from 1999-2002, the organization operated a museum in Hyde Park to display the materials collected and share the story of the Filipino American experience in Chicago.
Volunteers will work with FAHSC to develop inventories of materials significant to the history of the organization and of Filipino Americans in Chicago. Volunteers are invited to inventory and conduct a physical inspection of unique 16mm home movies, and develop an inventory for approximately 50 historical banquet and other large format photographs. The information gathered will be used to provide recommendations for storage and digitization for both the films and photographs. Volunteers will have a chance to receive hands-on training in the physical inspection, assessment, and repair of 16mm films from local film experts. This is a unique opportunity to learn how to assess and care for film while helping an organization take steps toward preserving the history of their community.
FAHSC is also coordinating with the Filipino American National Historical Society in Seattle, WA on a newspaper archiving project. Since the 1940s, several newspapers documenting news and activities of Filipino American communities have been published in Chicago, some identified as rare due to being published before the arrival of the internet as well as having a concentrated and often brief distribution. We will begin an inventory of these newspapers to help FAHSC identify rare publications to be shipped to the national society in Seattle.
Volunteers are encouraged to bring laptop computers for inventorying. WiFi will be available. While this is primarily an inventory-based DoS event, we would welcome donations of panoramic and other large format photograph storage supplies.
Participants must be at least 18 years old. All levels are welcome.
Date: Saturday, November 2nd
Time: 10 AM - 4:30 PM. Please plan to attend the entire day.
Location: 5472 S Dorchester Ave, Chicago, IL 60615
Registration required by 25 October. Limited to 12 participants.
This Day of Service is organized by CAA’s Programming Subcommittee and the Audio-visual Materials Interest Group. For this event, we are working with the Chicago Film Society, who will provide guidance and equipment for assessing motion picture film materials in the FAHSC collection.
Due to our co-organizing activities for this DoS, CAA registration is limited to 12 people and is open to CAA members only.
Note: Coffee will be available in the morning, and we encourage volunteers to BYOM (bring your own mug) to help keep the home of our host clean and limit our carbon footprint. For lunch, there are a few restaurants within a 5 minute walk on 55th street or volunteers can bring a brown bag meal.