The Awesome Foundation New York is proud to present our latest grant to Kylin O’Brien and her awesome project, the LEGOmandala. Congratulations! Kylin O’Brien is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Her LEGOmandalas combine the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of creating and ritualistically dismantling ornate sand mandalas with the contemporary medium of LEGO. A meticulous work of art, once complete it is taken apart by a group of adults and children invited to transform it into their own creation. The deconstruction of the piece represents the acceptance of material impermanence. The reconstruction of the LEGO represents the importance of imaginative co-creation and joy in transformative work. LEGOmandala brings people together, raises awareness and gives voice to Tibetan culture in a Western context – making its deep philosophical concepts accessible, contemporary and relevant. View a time-lapse video of a LEGOmandala event on Vimeo.

Do you ride a bike?   Some of us do and some of us don’t. Either way we are all for social change and creating a greener environment. That’s why we gave this month’s grant to Roll-Up bike valet for free Park(ing) day,  submitted by the lovely Joyce Watts. We got together last night at South Yarra Trattoria thanks to Morgan’s recommendation. The place was filled with elderly citizens – we’re hoping this was a compliment to our level of intelligence. Luckily we were given a (sound proof) glass room to ourselves; Kristian’s voice alone would have cleared the restaurant. We ate pasta. Lots of it. Except for Kristian who is on a juice diet (go figure). So Joyce has an awesome idea. September 21 is International Parking Day. Individuals from around the world get together and take over parking spaces for the public to do… whatever they want. Joyce, working with the ever wicked Roll-Up wants to offer three car spaces up as Valet parking for bikes. She’ll be able to fit ten bikes in one car space. The aim? Joyce is trying to encourage more people to ride their bikes as a mode of transport – which we think is… read more →

The members of Awesome Mongolia are extremely excited to tell you about the formation of our first chapter, Awesome Sukhbaatar! The idea has been really popular in our small town of Baruun-Urt, located in the Sukhbaatar province of Mongolia.   Former Peace Corps Volunteer Travis Hellstrom and I started our group slowly with a couple of key local leaders who we knew would be interested and are always motivated to help the community. They expanded it quickly and we had our group of 10 in no time, not to mention the support of the local government, media, plus a few other interested members waiting for openings or even a second chapter! I will act as the co-dean for the next year with Aldarmaa, our province’s educational department foreign language specialist. To get our first project going, we decided to introduce the idea to the community through an essay contest hosted by the Education Department. The topic was “If I had 200,000 tugriks I would…” On Children’s Day, a major holiday on June 1st here in Mongolia, we will announce the winner and award the student with the prize (roughly $200 US) to make their awesome idea happen! Later, we’re also… read more →

A new Melbourne project, Poo Power!, which uses discarded dog waste from parks as a renewable energy source is the latest recipient of the Awesome Foundation, Melbourne Chapter. The grant was awarded to Duncan Chew who developed the project after watching people readily scoop their dog’s poo in plastic bags only to send it to landfill but wanting to find a more sustainable way. Duncan Chew discovered there is over 1,350 tonnes of dog waste to be disposed of every day in Australia – nearly half a million tonnes per year. Using this un-tapped resource, the project involves building a digester to convert the dog waste into a biogas. It will then be used in a Melbourne park in a public lighting installation as a community meeting place for use by dog owners and other visitors. “In researching the scope of the project we were intrigued by the strong sense of community amongst dog owners that congregate at these parks,” says Duncan Chew. “We want to nurture this relationship and build a biogas fueled ‘campfire’ where people can come together at this unique meeting space.” The $1000 grant will be used to contribute towards the cost of building the poo-powered… read more →

After a hiatus, Awesome NYC is springing back with our April grant to 596 Acres. Here they are in their own words: 596 Acres distributes information about publicly owned vacant land in Brooklyn by publishing print maps, creating and hosting an interactive map, holding land use visioning sessions, and providing advocacy and support for community-based groups all over Brooklyn as they negotiate with city agencies for permission to use currently vacant and fenced-off lots for community-determined projects. Since we tested our tactics in a pilot project in June 2011, three vacant and warehoused lots in Brooklyn have become official sites of community projects: 462 Halsey Street, Feedback Farms, and the Java Street Garden Collaborative; Myrtle Village Green and Patchen Community Square are nearly official, too. Twenty-seven other communities are organizing for control of different pieces of Brooklyn using our tools. The April 2012 Awesome Foundation grant will be used to fund a dramatic extension to our current project by adding the publicly owned vacant lots in the other four boroughs to our site. This will give the communities in the rest of the city an idea of which vacant lots are owned by the city. It’s extra Awesome that this part of… read more →