The Awesome Foundation » UNITED STATES

Awesome Foundation Panel at the Creative Chicago Expo – Catch it Online!

AF Chicago — Fri, 03 May 2013 02:48:49 +0000

Small Projects, Big Impact

Some creative projects require years of planning, large staffs, and extensive fundraising campaigns. Others don’t – but that doesn’t mean that smaller projects are easy to accomplish or that they are any less important.

On March 2, 2013, John Carnwath and Derek Sherman of The Chicago Awesome Foundation sat down with Janet Attarian (Chicago Department of Transportation), Katherine Darnstadt (Latent Design / Architecture for Humanity Chicago), and Lindsay Obermeyer (The Red Thread Project®) at the Creative Chicago Expo to discuss Small Projects and Big Impacts.

An audio recording of the discussion is now available online. The panelists discuss small-scale projects of various sorts – “small” being defined variously in terms of physical dimension, budget size, duration, or institutional establishment – asking why people do them, how they get funded, what challenges to expect, and what their impact is.

First Chicago Awesome Hour with Live Pitches a Huge Success

AF Chicago — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 03:01:19 +0000

We thought we’d try something new in Chicago this month, so instead of picking our winner in the smokey backroom of an undisclosed location like we usually do, we invited six finalists to pitch their project proposals to a live audience and let the crowd decide on the winner. All six of the projects were certainly worthy of a thousand-dollar grant, but after hearing all the pitches and engaging in 20 minutes of intense deliberation the dedicated crowd at the Next Door Café rose to the challenge of selecting a single winner for the night.

Clean Graffiti: positive messages pressure-washed into the grime of the sidewalk.

Elizabeth Ortiz & Gilberto Sandoval, two teenagers from Yollocalli Arts Reach, delivered an enthusiastic pitch for their “Clean Graffiti” project that won the audience over. The idea is simple, creative, and compelling: they’re going to make stencils, rent a pressure washer, and blast positive messages into the grime of the city’s sidewalks. In doing so they’re flipping the idea of graffiti on its head, replacing the defacement of public property with an act of civil service (cleaning the sidewalks) and turning the negativity of gang tags into encouraging messages. Congratulations to Elizabeth and Gilberto, and a big nod of recognition to Yollocalli for engaging and fostering such promising kids.

Gilberto Sandoval & Elizabeth Ortiz of Yollocalli Arts Reach.

AwesomeNYC, where everybody knows YOUR name

Lee-Sean Huang — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:24:56 +0000

The New York chapter is proud to announce that our April grant has been awarded to Nametag Day, which on June 1, 2013 will distribute 200,000-nametags around New York City. The purpose of the event is to get people to talk to each other. But more than that, it’s about bringing a culture of openness to this sometimes standoffish city.

Read more on our April project page! And don’t forget to follow Awesome NYC on Twitter and Facebook.

Awesome LA Sparks Imagination with Noah Klein

Dan Taberski — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:35:41 +0000

Sixteen-year-old music-enthusiast, photographer, and engineer-in-the-making Noah Klein attended Burning Man last year, which filled him with a need to participate and contribute to the odd and unique marriage of music and art for this year’s festival. His answer: a reworking of Ruben’s Tube, a flaming cylinder that gives musical wavelengths a physical shape with fire (think: propane-fueled iTunes visualizer).

To give it his own spin, Noah has rehashed this traditional construction by finding a discarded grand piano, digitizing its keys, and hooking the mechanism up to his own Ruben’s Tube. His words: “I think it would be quite the spectacle to have someone be able to preform Mozart’s 5th Symphony and have it visualized with fire right in front of them.”

Awesome LA, with the consent of Noah’s enthusiastic, patient, and trusting mom, have awarded Noah with an Awesome grant to foster young, analytically minds and add a spark to Burning Man 2013 . Flame on.

February grant winner holds benefit

natalia — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 18:20:11 +0000

The Little Haiti Community Garden, our chapter’s February award winner, will be holding a benefit dinner on March 22 to draw attention to their transforming the garden. All members of the community are welcome! See the poster below for more information.

Set Sail with LA Awesome Foundation’s Grant Winner, Yaron Hakim

Dan Taberski — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:25:58 +0000

Art is good. Big Boats are great. Big Art Boats are AWESOME.

The Los Angeles Awesome Foundation is proud to award its February Awesome grant to LA-based artist Yaron Michael Hakim. With help from our $1,000 bucks – and his own two hands – Hakim is building a 22-foot sailing vessel known as a proa, which he will sail 22 miles across the sea to Catalina Island in mid-March as part of his greater body of work focused on travel and life-journey. Along his two-day trip, all by his lonesome, he’ll will be capturing stills and video that will be used later for an exhibit on April 25, 2013 at the University of California – Irvine.

You can track the progress of this truly awesome live action art piece, check out unutea.wordpress.com/

Update & Interview: Grant Uno Goes to Gather Baltimore!

dhaggag1 — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 22:26:33 +0000

It’s been a few weeks since we handed out our FIRST GRANT to the totally rad and ever-worthy Arthur Morgan for his project, Gather Baltimore. That picture to the right is the dashing Morgan getting his cool cash dough from Awesome Baltimore Trustee, Briony Hynson, and Guest Trustee, Dixon Stetler! Yippee!Our kick-ass trustee, Chloe Gallagher talked to the Gather Baltimore folks to gain some insight into how and why they do the work they do.

Awesome Baltimore: How did the idea of Gather Baltimore originate? When did you decide that you needed to make it a reality?
Gather Baltimore: The epiphany hit Arthur Morgan at the Farmers Market one Sunday morning. Just before noon, when the market was to end, vendors would begin throwing away food they could not sell. Morgan watched as hungry people rummaged through the discarded food, even picking up produce that had fallen on the ground. ”I said, ‘Holy Moly! Look at all this food that is going to waste,’” Morgan says. So Morgan, himself an urban farmer, devised a way to salvage some of the scraps by collecting the food in bins and transporting it himself by pickup truck to Our Daily Bread, a nonprofit that serves daily meals to people in need, and Shiloh United Church. Over time he learned from fellow farmers that the market’s waste was just the tip of the iceberg and was nothing compared to what the farmers were unable to harvest, sell or use from the farms themselves. That problem gave birth to Morgan’s fellowship, Gather Baltimore: Gaining Access To Healthy Eating Resources.

AB: Can you tell us a little about how Gather Baltimore works and who the beneficiaries of your project are?
GB: The goal of the project is to scale up his farmers market food collection efforts and find an efficient way to glean foods that would otherwise rot on the vines at area farms. Morgan and volunteers will harvest the perishable produce and distribute it to a diverse network of organizations that can use the food right away to feed the homeless and hungry or else jar, pickle and store it for later use. Gather delivers food to community partners that distribute the food to their communities- these partners include; Oliver Community Operation Oliver and Shiloh Baptist Church and others. Gather is also delivering to Moveable Feast, Helping Up MIssion, Our Daily Bread and Fraciscan Center.

AB: How does someone go about getting involved with Gather? What kinds of volunteers do you need and what kind of opportunities might exist for them?

GB: Gather is always looking for volunteers! We need help Gleaning the food( actually going into the fields and picking produce) We also use a lot of manpower when gathering after the Sunday farmers Market. We are currently getting our spring and summer Gleaning Schedule together. Like us on Facebook to stay up to date on volunteer opportunities and email arthur@gatherbaltimore.org to get put on the mailing list. Gleaning days are great for all ages! Market gathering days are better for adults and people who can lift stuff.

SPACE

AB: Do you have a favorite type of produce?

GB: Beets!

SPACE

AB: If you could see any musician/band, living or dead, live in concert who would it be?

GB: As I Lay Dying!

SPACE

AB: What do YOU think makes an idea awesome enough to be worthy of $1000?

GB: Track record and willingness to work hard!

SPACE

So there you have it, folks. Gather is awesome and totally badass. They do a very cool thing and need some volunteers to keep it going. So, why don’t you help them turnip the beet (Ha, get it? TURNIP THE BEET? LIKE TURN UP THE BEAT! BOOM!) and donate some of your time and skills? Gleaning is totally sexy and anyone can do it! Seriously, just try. Bring a date. We also wanted to give a shout out and thanks to our amazing Guest Trustees for this last round, Elaine Asal & Dixon Stetler. Y’all are the bomb diggity-est!

SPACE

Until next time, we love you Baltimore, AB.

New York City’s February grant: Wayfinding, pointing the way to 100 public sculptures!

Lee-Sean Huang — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 03:52:11 +0000

The New York chapter is proud to announce that our February grant has been awarded to local artist Bundith Phunsombatlert to fund his project “Wayfinding: 100 NYC Public Sculptures.”

Bundith’s plan is to install graphic signposts showing the direction and distance of 100 pieces of public sculpture in eight parks scattered across New York’s five boroughs. Tourists and locals alike will be guided by these signposts to take fuller advantage of New York’s wealth of existing public art — and the signposts will be a work of art themselves, in both a visual and participatory sense.

Read more on our February project page! And don’t forget to follow Awesome NYC on Twitter and Facebook.

The Sky is the Limit for SKYvision

Dawn Nakagawa — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 19:50:41 +0000

The South Bay Awesome Foundation is uber excited to name SKYvision as the latest recipient of an awesome grant. Students Karing for Youth Vision (or SKYvision) was founded in 2005 by a group of optometry students hoping to make an impact in their local community. They have certainly done just that and this group seems to be on their way to great things. Beginning with just two students and an idea, the group has grown into a structured organization with a treasurer and Faculty advisor.

SKYvision’s goal is to provide quality glasses for young people who otherwise could not afford it. Imagine you are a 3^rd grade student who struggles to stay focused in class and is falling behind in school, all because you can’t see the chalk board and you do not have the means to get glasses. Where do you go? What do you do? That’s where SKYvision comes in. The process starts with the donation of frames through the Optometric Fraternity Omega Delta. Next SKYvision uses at-cost lenses from their school lab. Finally, it’s a matter of matching up those in need with a fresh set of spectacles, which happens at the school‘s (South California College of Optometry) clinic, as well as at local health fairs and elementary school screenings.

Keep up the good work SKYvision. Little by little, one pair of glasses at a time, you are making this world a better place. You’ve got a vision (pun intended) and you’re sticking to it! Awesome work!

Bang your hearts out, LA!

Dan Taberski — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:53:23 +0000

The winner of January’s LA Awesome Grant is the Free to Be Me Drum Circle – the life’s work of badass drummer and community organizer Sabina Sandoval:

it’s a non-profit, all volunteer, charity group helping at risk kids, kids in grades K – 12, elders, people with special needs, and prison inmates by providing loving, educational drumming events. We go into convalescent hospitals where the residents can enjoy, and participate in, the music. We stimulate them by lifting their spirits and improving their motor skills.

Our 1K Awesome Grant will go toward much needed repairs on her over 400 (!!!) drums, which Sabina carts all around LA hosting her enormous, infectious drum circles that lure participants in to let loose, feel the beat, and find their own rhythm.

Sabina Sandoval is, indeed, awesome.

Another thing that’s awesome – this grant pushes The Awesome Foundation over the $400,000 mark in grants given to awesome projects from over 60 chapters around the world!!!