We all live in the concrete jungle. But how many of us venture on Concrete Safaris? This month, the Awesome Foundation of NY will be supporting the City Surfers initiative of Concrete Safaris up in East Harlem, to get more kids outside, surfing their city, and learning skills about the outdoors that they might not be getting at school or at home. You can head to Rich’s Tree Service, Inc, for the best garden services. City Surfers is a year-round after school educational activity for kids age 7-11—and turns into a full day-camp by summer—where students help to manage over 15,000 square feet of gardens on New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) properties. Students are encouraged to dream big in these natural spaces that they help create and sustain.  And their work in the garden moves into the streets, as they have also recently begun selling their harvest of fruits, veggies, perennials, and herbs at local farmers markets. The grant will go to support the purchase of critical ingredients for a City Surfer’s optimal experience, including plants that attract butterflies on their migration routes, art supplies and some good old fashion games. Concrete Safaris works with 1200 students a year and… 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.

July was an especially awesome month for the Melbourne Awesome Foundation. We were able to give not one, but two awesome projects something to get excited about. Swarm, Australia’s only online community management conference asked us to pick an awesome community project to give a free weekend pass to participate and be featured in what will no doubt be one awesome conference for community managers from all over Australia on the 13-14 September. The conference is made by community managers, for community managers, and mixes practical tips with provocative big picture thinking. It’s a transdisciplinary event, with contributors from a diverse range of industries and academia. It’s a peer support community, intended to give community managers in Australia a voice, and facilitate dynamic professional development. (If this sounds like something you’d like to attend you can register here) We had a large number of community applications to choose from and only managed to find one lemon in the bunch, The Lemon Tree Project. The Lemon Tree Project is about creating a place in every street for neighbors to congregate and share. Their vision is to get a communal lemon tree and a park bench in as many streets and reserves around the world as possible. Awesome,… read more →

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 →

Almost 40% of Angelinos are immigrants – and we’re betting they’ve got some great stories to tell. So we’re giving our August Awesome grant to help build La Burbuja – “the bubble” – a portable sound booth to record the stories of Latin American immigrants in Los Angeles as part of Sonic Trace, a KCRW radio project from indie producers Anayansi Diaz-Cortes and Eric Pearse Chavez. According to them: It begins in the heart of Los Angeles and crosses into Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Part radio, part video, part mapping project, Sonic Trace asks ¿Por qué te vas? ¿Por qué te quedas? ¿Por qué regresas? Why do you go? Why do you stay? And, what makes you return?… By recording and broadcasting their stories, Sonic Trace hopes to broaden and amplify the voices involved in the immigration debate and expand knowledge and understanding about immigration in our community. Holla that. Plus, La Burbuja will look like exactly that – a bubble! Our 1K is just the start – Anayansi and her team need 5K more to build this big round shiny orb of storytelling goodness. Give a few bucks over at their Kickstarter project to help them reach their goal. And come celebrate… read more →