Earlier this week, Awesome Buffalo announced that the winner of the Awesome Buffalo pitch was Seth Amman, president of the Allentown Association. Amman pitched a project for the Allentown Association and the Pride Center of WNY. The project entails the creation of rainbow crosswalks in Allentown – an area of the city that has a high concentration of LGBTQ residents and businesses. The $1000 cash prize will go directly towards the project Rainbows on Allen, which is designed to promote acceptive and inclusive thinking and understanding.
The rainbow crosswalks would be painted at one or two intersections on June 2, 2017, which happens to be during Buffalo & WNY Pride Week and the Association’s kick-off First Fridays gallery walk. This was the first Awesome Buffalo award to be granted. Other contenders for the cash prize included:
- A public solar-powered mural installation
- An awareness-raising battery recycling chute
- A community-minded brick oven bicycle
While these three ideas were not chosen, they can still be considered for future grants. Hopefully they will all get a chance to raise some funding, because they all sound like great ideas. It’s incredible to think that these $1000 blasts of money can empower so many entrepreneurs to present their pitches. It just goes to show that there are tons of inspirational ideas out there, that don’t require massive amounts of money to kick into gear.
*Applications are now open for the next Awesome Buffalo award cycle in June 2017. Awesome Buffalo is a local chapter of the The Awesome Foundation. The March 28th event was the first of four quarterly awards Awesome Buffalo plans for 2017, with trustees rotating between each selection process.