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.

In July of 2013, a group of art graduates called WHALE is returning to the northernmost parts of Manitoba to continue their adventures with Canada’s beluga whales. Their project: Becoming Beluga, to create a suit of wearable artwork that resembles a beluga and allows the wearer to don the whale’s appearance. Can a human be accepted into the pod? Can we break the barriers of communication?

WHALE will construct the suit using underwater cameras, a speaker on the top of the head, and hydrophones for ears, among other things. The experience can be recorded for later.

AF Winnipeg is excited to award WHALE $1000 for their April grant, and look forward to hearing all about their adventures come summer.

On Thursday, 18 April, Awesome Kingston gathered at the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery Brigade Association (RCHA Club) on Ontario St. to hold its monthly pitch party.  The RCHA is a gorgeous and historic venue overflowing with significance not only to Kingston but to Canada as a whole.  We were very privileged to be afforded this space, and we can’t thank enough the people who made it happen.  We packed the venue and heard from projects that want $1,000 to make Kingston an even more awesome city!  They were:

Shoreline Shuffle by Irina Skortsova - an 8km walk along Kingston’s shoreline to advance awareness about our natural and cultural waterfront.  They want to hold puppet workshops for the community, and these puppets will march with the group to raise visibility and engagement.

Kind to Me by Mat Clancy and Mike Robinson - a website where Kingstonians can go to share their stories about random acts of kindness guaranteed to brighten your day.  They want to create durable cards to give out which can then be tracked on their website as they’re given away with an act of kindness, and see the ripple effect that one kind act can have.

Queen’s University Autism Partnership by Rebecca Arcieri - a service provided to children with autism, including a one-to-one buddy from Queen’s University and after-school drop-ins.  They want to be able to expand the scope and quality of service they provide to Kingston families living with autism.

We also had a guest presentation from Ryan d’Eon about the Kingston Makerspace Initiative.  They want to establish a shared space where makers can coordinate and collaborate with tools, workshops, and facilities.  The Initiative is getting off the ground now, and wants to generate more interest and participation from the community.  Then, guest musician Chris Morris entertained with folk and blues the crowd while the trustees deliberated on the winner.

At the end of the night, the $1,000 in a designer paper bag was awarded to… Shoreline Shuffle!  Congratulations!

Check out the Storify for the “realtime” run-down of how the night unfolded.

Join Us Next Time!

Awesome Foundation – Kingston holds a monthly pitch party and Awesome Hours every third Thursday of the month!  Our next event will be on Thursday, 16 May 2013 at a location to be announced.  Usually, doors open at 6:30PM and the pitches begin at 7:00PM to give people to settle in, grab a drink, and mingle.  Start marking your calendars now!
 

If you have an awesome idea, or know someone who does, the deadline to apply for consideration for the next pitch party is 11:59PM, Sunday 5 May!  Remember to read the Submission Guidelines if you’ve got any lingering doubts about what qualifies for a microgrant from Awesome Kingston.

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.

and the South Bay Awesome Foundation is rewarding The Bella Foundation for their deep inner beauty. The $1000 grant goes to “Childrens Portraits for Struggling Mothers.”

A picture is worth a thousand words and provides a lasting memory that is forever. Working with a local womens shelter, Ms. Ward, the project leader on this one, used her photography skills to provide a beautiful family photo to women and their children who otherwise might not be able to afford one. At a time when money is tight, the women were happy to bond with their children around the photo. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?

Besides writing a mandatory by-law that says that chocolate must be eaten at every meeting, the four girls: Avery Ward, Annaliese Snowhook, Rebecca Schomer, and Alicia Schomer are serious about making the world a better place.

The girls are on their way to non-profit status and using our Awesome grant, have been propelled to a higher realm.  They are already making plans for future projects which include other photo days with Richmond Family Center, working the a local stable to provide lessons for autistic children, and providing improv classes to local youth.

The Bella Foundation proves that a small group of concerned people, of any age, can change the world.  The Bella Foundation is Awesome!

Ciao Bella!!

 
Never been before? No worries! It’s really simple and rather informal. Every month, people apply to the Awesome Foundation for a microgrant. We select the ones that we think are the most awesome for the month and invite them to give an ‘elevator pitch’ to the audience, for which they have 90 seconds. Following that, they take 7 minutes of Q&A from the audience. Once all the pitches have presented, the ten trustees go and “scrum” – or, decide who walks away with the cash this month.

It’s not only a free, fun, and inspiring event, it’s also a great place to meet and network with Kingstonians who are passionate about community and the continual improvement of our city. Invite your friends and come on out to the RCHA by 6:30PM to grab a drink and mingle before the pitches kick off around 7:00PM!  If you wanna learn more about how the night usually goes, check out our Feb Pitch Party Wrap-Up.

We’ll have music from a friend of Awesome – Chris Morris!

After the Pitch Party ends, stick around for some great live entertainment and Awesome Hours – a time when trustees and volunteers will be available to chat about anything you want! Ask us about the Awesome Foundation, past grants, your current awesome idea, the application process, or anything you want. Or just hang out and get to know us.

The pitch list will be revealed on the Facebook Event once it has been finalized and confirmed, so make sure you RSVP right away and keep your eye on it.  Remember to follow us on Twitter and Like our Facebook Page to stay in touch!  Make sure you don’t miss anything by subscribing to our newsletter to get the deets straight to your inbox.  See you on Thursday!

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

One in five Canadian moms struggle to provide clean diapers for their children. Kristina Prins has organized a city-wide diaper drive to address the need and bring awareness to the issue, and she has won Awesome Foundation – Calgary’s $1,000 no-strings-attached micro-grant for March 2013.

For families who struggle financially to make ends meet, providing clean diapers for their newborns is just one more thing to worry about. Some families have to sacrifice necessities in order to afford new diapers, and some babies are kept in soiled diapers for extended periods of time in order to cope, increasing the baby’s risk of infections. The average baby will use 2,800 diapers in their first year alone, costing an average of $850. Furthermore, daycare facilities often will not accept children without a full day’s supply of disposable diapers, which further increases the pressure on families in need.

The Calgary Food Bank provided 15,000 one-week emergency hampers with seven diapers per hamper (less than one day’s worth) to families in need in 2012. However, the Food Bank relies solely on diaper donations from the public because it isn’t currently in their mandate to use their funding towards that purpose (any money they receive primarily must go towards food). In order to provide a week’s supply of diapers in each hamper, the Food Bank would need $10,000 in diapers per year.

In order to raise awareness of the issue that some families face in Calgary and to help address the need in the city, Kristina has organized a city-wide diaper drive to assist the Food Bank in gathering these critical materials and to help those families who are in difficult circumstances.

The Bare Bottoms Diaper Drive is entirely self-funded from Kristina’s own pockets. The Awesome Foundation’s $1,000 will help Kristina promote the initiative in the hopes that Calgarians will rally and contribute towards the cause, either by donating to her diaper drive, or by encouraging others to start their own diaper collections. The funding would be used on the creation of promotional materials and posters to help get the word out, and on other materials needed to run the diaper drive. Any left over funds would go towards purchasing fresh diapers for the Food Bank.

If you’re in the Calgary area and want to contribute, you can donate diapers or dollars at the Calgary Zoo (donation bins will be set up near the Penguin Plunge exhibit on the North end of the Zoo) during Mother’s Day weekend (May 11 and 12, 2013) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and you’ll receive a 2 for 1 admission for a future visit to the Zoo for doing so. All sizes of disposable diapers are needed, particularly sizes 5 and 6, and new or opened packages will be accepted.

Donations will also be accepted year-round at the Calgary Food Bank, Food Bank donation stations, and at all Community Health Centres (Shaganappi, South and North West Community Centres have year round collections).

Finally, if you’d like to volunteer to help with Kristina’s diaper drive, learn more about the program, or learn more about how to start your own diaper collection, contact Kristina on Facebook, Twitter or by email.

The Awesome Sandy Rebuild Chapter is made up of people from a variety of backgrounds and specialties. Some work at not-profits, some work in the arts, and some have volunteered in storm affected areas.  They are all dedicated to helping the communities devastated by Hurricane Sandy recover as Awesome-ly as possible.

What kind of projects are you looking to fund?
Projects that are likely to catch our eyes are those that specifically and creatively show us how they will use $1000. Both individuals and organizations can and should apply with projects that put the $1000 grant towards anything that advances both Awesomeness and Sandy relief. Rebuilding after a natural disaster is a slow process and we understand that relief comes in all shapes. Requests to put the grant towards general operational costs will likely not get funded.

Do we owe you anything after we win?
The grants come with no strings attached. Although we would love to hear about the project and how it all goes, you are not required to check in later and we take no ownership over the project it supports.

How do I apply?
Fill out the form here.
http://www.awesomefoundation.org/en/submissions/new?chapter=sandyrebuild

I have more questions. Where do I send those?
awesomesandyrebuild@gmail.com