Each year, Awesome Buffalo (The Awesome Foundation) funds a number of grassroots community initiatives that are intended to better our lives in some form. The ideas are presented by community members, and funded by the Foundation – now what could be better than that? The best ideas are funded, and Buffalo becomes a better place to live and work.
Awesome Buffalo has funded city-sized projects before, including Feed Buffalo Little Pantries and Trash Can Be Beautiful.
Currently, Awesome Buffalo is funding two projects – the first is a new bench at the Five Points intersection so that visitors to the area can take a load off, and simply enjoy the sights and sounds of the blossoming neighborhood.
“Since I moved to Buffalo two years ago I spend a lot of time exploring the city. On my walks on the West side of the city I often enjoy the feeling of being present on the street and I want to extend that moment and sustain that feeling. In these moments I just want to sit down to enjoy the view, the air, the sounds, explore the buildings with my eyes, watch traffic – have a feel of the physical environment and the life in it.” – Nandor Pinter, who submitted the project
“The bench would let people look around in their city from a different time and space perspective – the perspective of the city itself,” wrote Pinter, a UB graduate student, in his original pitch to Awesome Buffalo. “The experience would be more than the usual transient one, when we drive on those streets or when we rush from A to B; it would be a few minutes of slow immersion, a long gaze; we would notice new things and we could understand better where we live.”
The project is explained in more detail here.
The second project is one that we can all relate to in an infuriating way – who doesn’t get excited about cutting ties with cable TV providers? As explained by project founder John O’Brien, every year we hand over our earnings to monopolistic companies that have terrible customer service, because of our fear of being disconnected from the “airwaves”. But there are ways to disconnect, while still getting limited channels. And who needs 200+ channels of mostly junk anyways?
“… TV providers are routinely viewed as the country’s most despised companies,” O’Brien wrote in his application. “Over a 10 year time period, households routinely give in excess of $12,000 to companies that are not liked and not seen as responsive to customer concerns and complaints.”
“My Cutting the Cord workshops would provide Buffalo residents with (1) information on streaming services that can replace television’s resources, (2) time and resources to build their own television antennas that will (a) get roughly 20 channels and (b) start attendants on their cord-cutting paths, and (c) propose alternatives for increasing the value of the savings earned by cutting the cord.” – John O’Brien
The project is explained in more detail here.
Awesome Buffalo is always looking to introduce potential new trustees to the group and show them how our micro-grants work. Potential trustees can email buffalo@awesomefoundation.org for more information. A full list of previous Awesome Buffalo grantees is available at buffalo.awesomefoundation.org.
Lead image: Photo by Josh Kahen