Ok awesome friends, it’s on!  Chicago has opened it’s doors and is accepting proposals through May 15th.  We’ll then retire to our Awesome clubhouse, hand type each application into our Awesome computer, and analyze the awesome potential of Chicago.  We’ll inform the grantee by May 30th, and plan to have a sweet award ceremony / party at Small Bar.  For more information on the Chicago Chapter, including bio’s of the trustees and an idea of the projects we love, head to Awesome Chicago.

You may recall back in December, our Awesome Applicants in DC were so… well… Awesome, that we had a hard time choosing.  A very close runner up for the grant was the Walker Jones Kitchen Classroom. Now, our guest Trustee for April, Miriam Schwedt and her Associate of Awesome, Katie Heller (both from the seriously awesome Peloton Projects) have picked up the Walker Jones cause and need your support! On May 1, Miriam and Katie would like you to join us at Walker-Jones for a day of Service to help them with their mission to teach kids about nutrition, nature, and how sowing seeds of hard work can pay off! The day will include working with Walker-Jones kids and families in their kitchen garden, followed by a Happy Hour and fundraiser!  For more information and to RSVP, check out the event page on facebook – get ready for a great day!! Although many kids at Walker-Jones come from tough situations, the staff have taken initiative to start an amazing kitchen garden, through which they are teaching students about gardening, nutrition, and soon, they hope, about cooking with the produce they have grown! We want to support Walker Jones in this… read more →

Urban renewal is a hot topic and the Awesome Foundation is big into supporting into creative minded people who focus on harnessing a community’s energy to complement larger scale bricks and mortar development.  The Boston Chapter awarded it’s February grant to artist and basketball enthusiast Maria Molteni in support of her mission to restore use of local abandoned b-ball courts by crafting DIY nets. This project harnesses the power of shared activity and public space in fostering a bond of trust between artists, athletes, and neighbors. The nets are designed to be colorful, vibrant additions to public spaces that go beyond being strictly functional. Installing unique hand-crafted products sets the stage for individual expression. The MOLTENi NET WORKS project is well underway with a recent exhibit at Cambridge’s MEME Gallery in Central Square that also included workshops where participants were able to hand-crochet basketball nets to be installed on bare hoops. Efforts have begun locally in Allston, MA and there are several local organizations (Boston include Artists for Humanity, Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, Design Studio for Social Intervention, and Massart’s Fibers Department) interested in putting on more workshops. If you’d like to get pitch in, there are a… read more →

Tim Hwang reporting in here for Awesome Foundation San Francisco! We’re thrilled to announce that this months winner of the Awesome Fellowship is Wendy MacNaughton, a brilliant artist and illustrator living here in the Bay Area. She’s been working recently on a series called “Meanwhile” — narrative comics exploring the thicket of awesome microcommunities nestled within San Francisco. Previous comics have explored the Market Street Chess Players, The Dolphin Club Bay Swimmers, Dog Walkers, Farmer’s Market Farmers and Mission Bartenders. They’re all tremendously fun to read, and are worth checking out here. For this month, she’s worked out a partnership with the San Francisco Public Library, and will be spending a month interviewing and drawing the folks who work there, and exploring the people who use the libraries as a community hub. Best of all (and we’re still working out the details) but the SFPL has agreed to either show the outcome of the project in their readers cafe at Fort Mason, or (better yet) help make little books of it that can be on display and for sale at libraries, the cafe and bookstores in SF (with proceeds going to the library!) You can see more of Wendy’s work… read more →

There’s a reason why we are only now, in the middle of April, announcing the Boston January ’11 Awesome Fellows: it’s because they’re super mysterious. The Banditos Misteriosos are a troupe of Bostonians who consider themselves Boston’s mysterious playmate. Since 2007, they’ve been organizing public ruckuses and shenanigans that try to provide answers to the two big questions they’re always asking: “Who are these people we pass in the street?” and “How could we use those big open public spaces?” The Awesome Foundation is very excited to fund one of their future capers, which should be seeing the light of day in the summer. And although we know all the juicy behind-the-scenes plans, our lips are zipped for now when it comes to details: the mystery must linger! Instead, we’ll let them tell you about the basic idea: You see, we’re going to make a puzzle.  And some time in the summer, you’ll get to put it together! Oh… P.S. It’s gonna be GIANT! Want more details beyond that? Patience! Patience! You’ll find out more soon enough!  For now, we just need you to get excited, start boning up on your puzzling skills, and be sure you’ll be privy to… read more →