The Compton Chess Club is in check. A check for a thousand bucks, to be precise. The Los Angeles chapter of the Awesome Foundation has awarded Compton Chess Club its August grant. Founded by the Inner-City Mining Company, a mentoring organization that focusses on African-American inner-city males, the Compton Chess Club brings the ancient game to a whole new audience of young minds. But the club does more than just teach kids the rules. As the founders put it, “The game is an excellent tool to help formulate a strategic mindset. It forces you to be aware of your actions and those of your opponent. You learn about sacrifice and what needs to be valued.” You can read more about the organization’s mentoring efforts at innercitymining.com. Congratulations to ICMC and the awesome Compton Chess Club for being our August grant recipients! We here at LA Awesome are just happy to help, even if we don’t know a bishop’s pawn from a Sicilian Defense.

Last month, the Los Angeles chapter of the Awesome Foundation invited three grant applicants to pitch their ideas, “Shark Tank”-style, to a panel of billionaires. Okay, so they were fake billionaires, and the whole thing was part of a comedy show, but it did not lack for awesomeness. The Awesome Tank Show, presented at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Hollywood, gave the people behind three diverse projects an opportunity to present their ideas in front of a live audience. The show was hosted by LA trustees Matt Walsh and Scot Armstrong, and featured some of the theater’s funniest improvisers portraying notable billionaires Richard Branson, Mikhail Prokhorov, and the gossipy founders of the “Home Shopperficial Network.” After peppering the presenters with ridiculous questions, the judges agreed to award a thousand dollars to all three applicants! Grants were provided to Story Pirates, which teaches writing and literacy through improvised musical comedy; Trash Club, a grassroots community cleanliness organization; and Libro Libre, which provides books free of charge to inmates at California state prisons. Congratulations to the winners, and special thanks to the UCB Theater and everyone who came out to see the show. The LA chapter hopes to put on more… read more →

Jerry D. Holland Middle School in the city of Baldwin Park graciously accepts one of our biggest donations toward a pinewood derby program for the school.  The pinewood derby program is designed for interested students in the fields of STEM and helps them apply knowledge from their core classes into something tangible for real life application.   The funding will go toward our fall inaugural race with the purchase of an electric timer and 500 cars. This funding is designed to be a start-up, and the pinewood derby program will be a sustainable program with students and local businesses maintaining the event for the next 10 years. For individuals who do not know what a pinewood derby is — students will receive a basic grab bag of parts and will be instructed to build the fastest moving object that will roll down a 32-foot ramp. The hope of this program is to get students interested in STEM fields and introduce a possible future career pathway for middle school students. https://hrvatskafarmacija24.com

The Awesome Foundation of Los Angeles is pleased to award its most recent grant to Strive Kitchen. Strive is an after-school academics and arts program operating in the Watts community of South Los Angeles, with the mission of educating well-mannered, academically prepared, individually responsible children who do not allow their lives to be defined by personal circumstances. As part of Strive’s efforts to educate students about nutrition and health, the program is introducing the Strive Kitchen and Cafe, where students can have a nutritious meal and buy daily homemade treats.   This month’s grant will go towards Strive’s goal of transforming their kitchen into a classroom and training facility, where students can not only learn about healthy eating and lifestyle choices, but also develop skills as cooks, servers and managers. As the Strive program approaches its 25th anniversary next year, the Awesome Foundation is proud to contribute to their efforts to make physical health the basis for academic success. Learn more at www.strive-la.org, and congratulations to Strive Kitchen!