The South Bay Awesome Foundation is uber excited to name SKYvision as the latest recipient of an awesome grant.  Students Karing for Youth Vision (or SKYvision) was founded in 2005 by a group of optometry students hoping to make an impact in their local community.  They have certainly done just that and this group seems to be on their way to great things.  Beginning with just two students and an idea, the group has grown into a structured organization with a treasurer and Faculty advisor.   SKYvision’s goal is to provide quality glasses for young people who otherwise could not afford it.  Imagine you are a 3rd grade student who struggles to stay focused in class and is falling behind in school, all because you can’t see the chalk board and you do not have the means to get glasses.  Where do you go?  What do you do?  That’s where SKYvision comes in.  The process starts with the donation of frames through the Optometric Fraternity Omega Delta.  Next SKYvision uses at-cost lenses from their school lab.  Finally, it’s a matter of matching up those in need with a fresh set of spectacles, which happens at the school‘s (South California College of… read more →

  The winner of January’s LA Awesome Grant is the Free to Be Me Drum Circle – the life’s work of badass drummer and community organizer Sabina Sandoval: it’s a non-profit, all volunteer, charity group helping at risk kids, kids in grades K – 12, elders, people with special needs, and prison inmates by providing loving, educational drumming events. We go into convalescent hospitals where the residents can enjoy, and participate in, the music. We stimulate them by lifting their spirits and improving their motor skills. Our 1K Awesome Grant will go toward much needed repairs on her over 400 (!!!) drums, which Sabina carts all around LA hosting her enormous, infectious drum circles that lure participants in to let loose, feel the beat, and find their own rhythm.   Sabina Sandoval is, indeed, awesome. Another thing that’s awesome – this grant pushes The Awesome Foundation over the $400,000 mark in grants given to awesome projects from over 60 chapters around the world!!!

This January, the New York City chapter has decided to fund a project that combines mental health awareness with telekinesis! Zachary Valenti’s “Uplift Yourself, Uplift the World” project will stage touring mindfulness carnivals on college campuses, where students will be able to learn about mental health resources and practice mindfulness.  The centerpiece of these carnivals, which Awesome NYC is helping to fund, will be a large tower containing floating globes which rise or fall depending on the signal from an EEG headset worn by a student volunteer.  So if you wear the headset and uplift yourself, you can quite literally uplift (a scale model of) the world!  This awesome application of 21st-century technology will help draw traffic to the mindfulness carnivals, spreading awareness about mental health. Read more on our January project page!

One hundred years before the Tesla Roadster or the Nissan Leaf, a company called Baker Electric was making cars entirely powered by electricity. Today, a group of awesome folks in Rhinebeck, NY are bringing a Baker Electric car back to life. This month, the NYC chapter of the Awesome Foundation is proud to announce that our $1000 microgrant will allow a group at the the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome museum to restore a 1911 Baker Electric Automobile to working order. This vehicle is quite a unique piece of early automotive technology, illustrating the little-known history of electric car experimentation before the internal combustion engine dominated the rest of the century. Currently, the Aerodrome’s Baker has been moved out of storage and into the workshop for cleaning and evaluation. Check out the group’s Baker Electric blog for photos and updates on this awesome car’s restoration (and for a video of Jay Leno with his own 1909 Baker Electric)! In the summer, audiences at the Aerodrome can check out air shows and a “Parade of Vintage Vehicles” which will include the Baker Electric Car once it’s been restored. If you are interested in joining the Awesome NYC Trustees to visit the aerodrome this… read more →

In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, communities in the most devastated parts of New York City began the process of rebuilding almost immediately, mostly through the work of volunteers and self-motivated individuals stepping up personally with very little infrastructure or centralized support. In the Rockaways, one of the areas hit hardest, a group of local artists and builders are collaborating on an alternative relief and resilience project called This is Not a Trash Pile. They have teamed up with Culinary Kids, a local organization working with youth to promote nutrition and self-sufficiency through local agriculture and aquaculture projects. Together, they have erected a tent built from salvaged material on NYC Parks Department property under the stewardship of Culinary Kids. With programming from The Whale Project, The Fixers Collective and Time’s Up, among many others, this tent will be a hub for the community and will host combination of youth educational programs, resilient community programs, and mutual aid and distribution programs. We’ve even heard that the tent is going to house a library!       AwesomeNYC is proud to name This is Not a Trash Pile our November grant recipient. The funds will go toward materials and heating units for the tent,… read more →