Foundation aims to make Windsor more ‘aWEsome’

By Murad Erzinclioglu

A new non-profit foundation is hoping to make Windsor and Essex County more awesome, $1,000 at a time.

The Aweome Foundation that originally started in Boston in 2009 has since become a worldwide network of “people devoted to forwarding the interest of awesomeness in the universe,” according to their website. The foundation distributes a series of monthly $1,000 grants to projects and their creators. The money is pooled together from the coffers of ten self-organizing micro-trustees and given upfront in cash. The first deadline for idea generators is Feb. 13.

Nicole Adan, dean of awesome, created the Windsor branch of the foundation after seeing the initiative at work in Toronto. She says that Windsor and Essex County will put the “W” and “E” into “aWEsome.”

“I think that Windsor Essex has lots to offer,” Adan said. “This provides us the opportunity to showcase all of the awesome things that are happening via the Awesome Foundation and their huge network across the world.”

Anthony Difazio, 18, is a clerk at Dr. Disc Records as well as a painter and musician. He heard about the foundation through friends and said he sees it as an opportunity to fund an art book that he has been trying to get off the ground for the past year.

“I’m creating a whole world for a character called Soda Pop. He’s not from around here,” Difazio said. “He’s a really weird guy who experiences things in a weird way and then he shows it through songs, through books, through pictures. I want people to be able to have it for their own as part of a collection.”

If Difazio’s idea is accepted, he’ll use the grant to fund the creation of hand made versions of the book that he will sell for $20 each. He hopes his do-it-yourself approach to art will inspire others to create and share within the community.

Unlike other grants and bursaries that are given out by the government, the foundation’s application process is quick, easy and comes with no strings attached. This was the most appealing part of the project for Karen Kahelin, a program manager for the Ontario Trillium Foundation, who is one of 14 trustees who have put their own money on the table.

“I work for a government foundation that puts $120 million into the community a year but there’s criteria and eligibility and there’s all sorts of strings attached because it’s public money,” Kahelin said. “The idea that’s most appealing to us is that this is our money and we can just give it to anybody we want.”

So put your thinking cap on because your next big idea could net you $1,000. More information and applications can be found at www.awesomewindsor.com