Awesome Palm Beach is having our very first Pitch Party and Grant Award on Thursday December 5th in West Palm Beach, FL. RSVP NOW AT:  http://www.meetup.com/Awesome-Palm-Beach/events/143440282/ We make small, no strings attached, micro-genius grants for flashes of micro-brilliance and awesomeness in Palm Beach County. We invite ANYONE with $100 and the desire to support Awesomeness in Palm Beach to join us and help to select and crowdfund the winner for our first ever grant! Pitches by finalists will be followed by a short vote of attendees  and then the award of the microgrant! This will be followed by Awesome Hours around 8:30 pm which is a great time to network with other great people who think Palm Beach is awesome and want to make it ever more awesome. Trustees will be around too so feel free to ask us questions and chat with us. All money collected will be donated to the winner selected that that night! —– Have a crazy brilliant idea that needs funding? We award a minimum  $1,000 grant every month to awesome projects and people in Palm Beach County. It couldn’t be simpler! Your idea is yours alone. We don’t want a stake in it. We… read more →

This month the Awesome Foundation Los Angeles funded an proposal from within! The idea that came from our group of trustees and got put into action this month is a food sharing project called Share Shelf. We built 25 small square shelves that fasten (without doing harm) to parking-sign posts or bus-stop sign posts. The shelves have bumper stickers on them with instructions on how to share your leftovers that say: FULL? SHARE YOUR LEFTOVERS! HUNGRY? HELP YOURSELF. The shelves are located all around the city near restaurants that serve big portions that are in areas with heavy foot traffic and that have a high volume of homelessness. The shelves are not TOO near restaurants to prevent loitering near entrances.This is because we want the shelves to be a positive thing for the whole community, including dining establishments!

The location is set! The Awesome Kingston October Pitch Party is Thursday Oct 17 at the Merchant pub at 6A Princess St. Come grab your seats around 6:30pm, with the pitches kicking off around 7pm.   We have 4 great pitches lined up: Light of Day Kingston by Gord Hunter The Dobby Project by Jennifer Anderson Marquis Players by James Hyett and Will Medeiros A Filabot for the Makerspace by Ryan d’Eon from Kingston Makerspace   The pitches will be followed by a short trustee scrum  and then the award of the $1000 microgrant! This will be followed by Awesome Hours around 8:30 pm which is a great time to network with other great people who think Kingston is awesome and want to make it ever more awesome. Trustees will be around too so feel free to ask us questions and chat with us.   We are also looking for new Trustees, so if you are interested in becoming a full Trustee, or just want to do it one time as a guest Trustee, then please come talk with us!   Hope to see you all at the Pitch Party Thursday October 17 at the Merchant!    

With Thanksgiving fast approaching, don’t forget to submit your awesome idea for the October Pitch Party! Applications are open until 11:59pm on Wednesday 9th of October. I will be contacting pitchers starting on Friday Oct 11. I know there are a ton of truly awesome ideas out there and I look forward to seeing your idea in the application forms! You can submit your applications at www.awesomekingston.org. If you are reading this blog then you are already in the right place, just click on the pink button that says “Apply for a Grant”. While you are here on the website, you can get some inspiration by reading about last month’s grant recipient The Smile Team. Such a great yet simple idea with tons of potential impact. Big or small ideas, we will accept them all! We are also recruiting for full trustees and guest trustees. If you are interested please email us at mail@awesomekingston.org. And if you are looking for more awesome updates then follow us on twitter or facebook. Hope to see you all at the October Pitch Party!

The following is a guest post, written by Chris Rawlins from The Scholar Match— The consistently rising cost of higher education has left many bright and high-achieving high school students in the Bay Area without the financial resources to attain their goals, dreams, and ambitions of a college degree.  As a result, I have partnered with other Silicon Valley professionals in starting a new financial scholarship fund through the combined organizations of Indiegogo.com and ScholarMatch. Our goal is simple.  To provide college scholarships for 12 very special and deserving students in the Bay area.  This program will also be offering more than just financial assistance.  We will follow these young adults through their college years, providing support and mentoring as they face the many challenges of a post-secondary education. We need your help.  The 12 scholarships will require a combined total of only $16,150 dollars.  We can easily meet this goal with only 646 donations of only $25.  It is our hope that the wide reaching arms of the social media will help our Indiegogo Campaign to quickly “GO VIRAL”.  All funds exceeding the original $16,150 will be used to help even more students from the California, Bay Area area…. read more →