In Loeb's mind, all of Break Away's activities create a blueprint for community change, one that connects people to technology -- and to one another. The way Loeb sees it, technology's larger mission is to connect all kinds of communities, regardless of where they are physically located. He figures that this concept can be easily duplicated in other parts of the country. All it takes, Loeb believes, is a little bit of caring and a big commitment to change.
"I just kind of started where I was and did what I could where I was," says Loeb. "I didn't want to wake up in five or six years and say, 'Things look really bad in the community. I wish I'd done something to make it a better place.' "
"We believe in activism through technology. Our purpose is to produce change through technology"
Picture this: the date -- autumn 1993; the place -- West Town, a low-income Latino neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago. The community is having a block party. Hundreds of people are on the streets, and 1,000 people in all will join in over the course of the day.
The main attraction? Television monitors. Dozens of them, everywhere, each screen filled with video images of life on the street -- as seen from a kid's point of view. An empty lot is set up like a graveyard, but instead of gravestones there are monitors showing videos of local teens who are talking about the friends whom they've lost to street violence. Down the block, in front of a huge construction site, another batch of monitors is broadcasting films about the impact of gentrification on this close-knit community. And, in an abandoned car, a single monitor features a video on a more lighthearted subject -- cruising.
The block party, a one-day massive video event, is the brainchild of a group of local video artists and a high-school teacher who see the tools of this medium as tools for change -- a way to help at-risk young people turn their time on the streets into something more productive than just hanging with a gang. The organizers recruited 15 students who have made nearly four dozen videos to show continuously throughout the day.
"We used video because it's a powerful way to portray real stories," says Tony Streit, 34, one of the video artists who worked with the teens.
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