Awesome Food is superexcited to announce that its inaugural micro-grant of $1,000 has been awarded to Compost Mobile, a residential compost service based inMiami, Florida that provides a home pick-up service for food scraps that are then delivered to urban farms and community gardens. Compost Mobile, which is a project of the non-profit Up-Lab, was chosen out almost 600 applications submitted to the first round of Awesome Food call for proposals. “We think Compost Mobile is awesome because it’s making a difference at the ground level,” said Jeff Potter, author of Cooking for Geeks who is one of the Awesome Food trustees. “They’re figuring out how to take food scraps from the home and use them to help low-income communities start gardens and urban farms. It’s an awesome idea because it takes a bunch of problems—waste, food illiteracy, lack of nutritious food—and cancels them out by combining them in an awesome way!” Jennifer Siqueira, coordinator of Compost Mobile and co-founder of Up-Lab with Hector F. Burga, had been working in community gardens locally, when she learned of  a similar scraps to-compost effort in Washington DC. (There are similar efforts throughout the country). Jennifer explained, “I had friends who came to me with… read more →

Thanks to everyone who submitted to the first Awesome Food grant! It’s been overwhelming. Not only do we have applications from all over the United States and Canada, but also have applications from around the world: Tel Aviv, Shanghai, London, Melbourne. It’s great to see how much Food Awesomeness there is. So, 600 is a record for any of the Awesome Foundation chapters, and it will take us a bit to figure out how to process them. But we are scurrying around trying to figure out how to narrow it down. And yes, the applications are good for subsequent rounds. If they are not time sensitive, the top ones will automatically be rolled into considerations. In our ideal world, we’d announce in early September. (Wiggle room)

Awesome Food, a chapter of the worldwide Awesome Foundation, officially launched on Wednesday, July 20 and is now accepting grant applications from around the world to further food awesomeness in the universe. Visit awesomefood.net to learn more and apply at awesomefood.net/apply. The first round for application deadline is end-of-day, Friday, August 5th.