Want $1,000 for an Awesome Food Project?
Posted: August 3, 2011
Categories: News from Sustain Ontario
Between all of the work and volunteering we do around here, we interact with activists, policy wonks, actionists, grass-roots motivators, people who work at all levels of the food system, politicians and of course enterprise. All play important roles in creating a food system that sprouts good things. But change is difficult for many reasons.
Corporations are responsible for short-term growth. Political entities for getting reelected. I’ve long felt the best opportunity for positive and innovative growth comes from public engagement.
A few weeks ago I became a trustee of an awesome initiative. The Awesome Foundation is a network of chapters consisting of  ’trustees’ who put money into a monthly pot that becomes no-strings-attached $1,000 micro-grants for projects that should get a boost.  If you haven’t heard about it, here are the details from the Awesome website:
The Awesome Foundation originally started in Boston in 2009 and has since grown to be a worldwide network of people with nearly 20 chapters in cities across the world, including San Francisco, NYC, Ottawa, London, Berlin, Sydney, Zurich, among others. Projects funded have included a giant hammock in Boston, tram sessions in Melbourne, and a fab lab in Washington DC. Most chapters are geographically focused. But food is topic focused.
The chapter I became a trustee of is called Awesome Food,  and it’s the first chapter of the worldwide Awesome Foundation to diverge from the regional guidelines and focus on an issue/interest area. Awesome: Food, and of course its parent the Awesome foundation is an awesome example of people working together to help things that matter happen.
So far, the trustees include an ultra dynamic list of food area folks, including:
- Alaina Browne of Serious Eats — New York, NY
- Barry A. Martin of Hypenotic — Toronto, Canada
- Christine Liu — Boston, Masschusetts
- Dan Barber of Blue Hill Farms — New York, New York
- Food52 (Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs) — New York, New York
- Foodspotting Team — San Francisco, California
- James Cronin of Paul A Young Fine Chocolates — London, UK
- Jeff Potter, author of Cooking for Geeks — Los Angeles, California.
- Jennifer 8. Lee, journalist and author
- Josh Simon of Function Drinks — Los Angeles, California
- Kamal Rashid Nuri of Truly Living Well — Atlanta, Georgia
- Rolando Robledo of Clover Food Lab — Boston, Massachusetts
- Eric Silverstein of Peached Tortilla — Austin, Texas
- Jade Applegate *Chapter Dean — Walking across the country
- Meredith Blumenstock *Chapter Dean — Boston, Massachusetts
Officially launched on Wednesday, July 20 Awesome Food is now accepting grant applications from around the world to further food awesomeness in the universe. Visit awesomefood.net to learn more and/or apply.
The application deadline for the first round of funding is end-of-day, Friday, August 5th.
Good luck, and do share this with people who should be signing up.