Kingston, you’re all invited to come out to Awesome Hours at 7:00PM on Thursday, 20 September at Coffeeco Market Square! What are Awesome Hours, you ask? They’re like office hours, kicked up a notch – it’s a time when anyone can come out to sit down with Awesome Kingston trustees, potential pitchers, and creative minds to idea jam and chat awesomeness. Whether you have an awesome project already lined up for submission, or you just want to connect and network with others who do, or you’re just really curious about this whole Awesome Foundation thing, we encourage you to come out! We’ll be sitting down at the community table at Coffeeco’s Market Square location to stir up a whirlwind of brilliance. We’re coming off our summer break and the gears are in motion for an exciting October pitch party. This is the time to get excited and energized – start working on those flashes of brilliance you’ve been having and turn them into pitches that could win $1,000 to make the Limestone City more awesome! Awesome Hours are just the place to do that. If you’re interested in getting involved and volunteering with Awesome Kingston, or looking to become a… read more →

A project to create an 18-foot interactive electrical CLOUD created out of 5000+ incandescent light bulbs has won Awesome Foundation – Calgary’s $1,000 grant for the month of August.

August’s Awesome Ottawa award goes to Caroline Andrew, Manjit Basi, Davis Carr, Mitchell Kutney, Judith Maxwell, Maureen Molot, and Ken Victor to support the establishment of a Citizens Academy in Ottawa. The Citizens Academy, they explain, will be a learning program for citizens, designed not only to teach municipal literacy but also to develop skills on how to engage, facilitate, ask questions, and present ideas. The participants will represent Ottawa’s age, gender, geographic, and ethno-cultural mix, and involve community groups, businesses and city officials. “By bridging the gaps between citizens and organizations, and educating both groups, we will catalyze civic vitality,” says Judith. “We live in an amazing city with talented people, a stunning environmental setting, and many economic opportunities,” explains Manjit. “Ottawa is a city with a lot of passionate people doing many amazing things. But we are also a city that is growing, complex, diverse, and changing. Some of the changes are cause for concern: the gap between rich and poor is growing, many people lack a sense of belonging, affordable housing is not plentiful, the divide between rural and urban communities is unsettling, and neighbourhoods are not equal for all our citizens. That future lies in the… read more →

Second time’s the charm for the Calgary Creative City Collaboration (C4) as their Urban Stationary project has won Awesome Foundation – Calgary’s July 2012 $1,000 micro-grant.

July’s Awesome Ottawa award goes to Meaghan Kenny for the Karen Community Farm Project. “The Karen are one of the largest ethnic minority groups of Burma, and have been persecuted for decades,” explains Meaghan. In 2006, the Canadian government announced that it would accept 3000 Karen refugees, over a two-year period, for re-settlement in Canada. In September that year, the first group of Karen refugees arrived in Ottawa from a refugee camp in Thailand. About 200 refugees settled in Ottawa.” “Many of the Karen are highly skilled farmers,” Meaghan continues. “Farming has been their subsistence and their livelihood from their villages to the refugee camps. However, for the most part, these cultural assets and aspects of their identity lie dormant in Ottawa as the Karen now have no outlet for their extensive knowledge, skills, and culture.” Community volunteers have worked since the arrival of the first group of Karen in 2006 to establish a place for them to farm. In 2007, the Karen were given the use of a three-acre field in rural Kanata by a couple who heard the story and offered their idle land for no charge. They welcomed the Karen to their farm, bought tools, cleared fields,… read more →