The Connecticut chapter of Awesome Foundation is just getting off the ground, but other chapters around the world have been funding projects for the past two years. An ongoing list appears on Awesome Foundation’s main blog. Here are a few of the latest and awesomest:
Stories of Seattle
“The project started when she was in Portland, giving out free sandwiches to homeless people. She continued the tradition when she came to Seattle. When people wanted to give her something in return, she got the idea of asking them to let her record their stories. She plans to use the grant in part to create a website for the project, to share those stories more widely.
And of course, she’ll be buying lots of bread and ingredients for sandwiches. (No bologna, she promises.)” Awesome Portland story
Concrete Jungle
An Atlanta based volunteer group picks and distributes unused fruits and nuts to metro Atlanta homeless organizations and charities. “We find uses for fruit across Atlanta that otherwise would go to waste,” said Micki Maynard, creator of CulinaryWoman and an Awesome Food trustee. “At every step, this awesome project is helping someone or something. It aids the environment, by keeping the trees bountiful and healthy. It helps community groups with its donations of fruit, and allows them to do their work helping the hungry.” Awesome Atlanta story
Booktree in Ourshelves
“Ourshelves is a space designed to share appreciation for literature. It’s not government-funded like the public library, and it isn’t monetarily focused like a bookshop. It’s about sharing good literature — whether sharing suggestions, long conversations over tea, coffee and sometimes whiskey, lending books to the community, or putting little-known work on the shelf. It’s also about sharing possibilities about what publishing can be. San Francisco is one of the most literary cities in the world, still it doesn’t yet have a space completely dedicated to literature. That’s what Ourshelves strives to be.” Awesome SF story
Orchestra Kingston
“Orchestra Kingston is a community-based orchestra who play simply for the love of music. They will use the grant towards buying some refurbished Timpani drums. These drums will be used by the community orchestra and will be loaned out (for free) to community groups for performances and instruction. As a celebration of aquiring the timpani, Orchestra Kingston will perform a free concert for Kingstonians at some time in the spring.” Awesome Kingston event photos
$1000 Tunneling Microscope?
Let’s say you’re an average Joe evil genius trying to make a sentient nanoswarm in your underground lair. How do you see the little guys to prove you’ve succeeded …or troubleshoot in the unlikely case of failure? Traditionally, you’d need a $30,000 microscope to accomplish that task. Enter the Chicago Awesome Foundation’s October grantee, Sacha De’Angeli, and his Open Source Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) project: producing an easy to assemble digital scanning-tunneling microscope, with well documented software and hardware designs, for a complete cost of $1000. Awesome Chicago story