This year, 7x7 teamed up with The San Francisco Foundation Community Leadership Awards to present the 2014 TSFF Community Choice Award, which contributes $20,000 to a groundbreaking Bay Area organization and additionally spotlights a rising star. With a résumé spanning everything from Sundance Feature Film Lab Writing Fellow to 826 Valencia Young Author Award recipient to HBO’s Def Poetry cast member, Oakland native Chinaka Hodge has taken the Bay Area’s creative industry by storm. Not content to focus only on her own work, Hodge has also dedicated her life to creating opportunities and platforms for emerging artists to develop their craft. 

As a board member at Headlands Center for the Arts, Hodge serves on the program committee and has been a trailblazer in maintaining the Bay Area’s vibrant and supportive arts scene. Per their mission statement, Headlands “provides an unparalleled environment for the creative process and the development of new work and ideas.” This dedication takes the form of community programs, including open houses and salons, as well as subsidized studio space and an international live-work residency program for artists looking to up their game. In an era when Bay Area artists and arts organizations struggle to survive, Headlands Center for the Arts and Hodge are not about to let art fade away—they’re going to nurture it into full bloom. // headlands.org