“BE Calm and BE AWESOME” $1000 at a time – The Awesome Foundation Birmingham Chapter

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Awesome "BE Calm and BE AWESOME" $1000 at a time - The Awesome Foundation Birmingham Chapter
First recipient of a $1000 grant from the Awesome Foundation – Birmingham Chapter – Team Alabama Solar Decathlon SURVIV(AL) House

Can you make a difference $1000 at a time? That is exactly what The Awesome Foundation is doing globally and here in Alabama.

The concept is simple (from their website):

The Awesome Foundation is a global community advancing the interest of awesome in the universe, $1000 at a time. Each fully autonomous chapter supports awesome projects through micro-grants, usually given out monthly. These micro-grants, $1000 or the local equivalent, come out of pockets of the chapter’s “trustees” and are given on a no-strings-attached basis to people and groups working on awesome projects.

The Birmingham chapter which was founded by Dionne Mahaffey and Max Rykov gave out their first $1000 in January to Team Alabama Solar Decathlon SURVIV(AL) House.

940x470 "BE Calm and BE AWESOME" $1000 at a time - The Awesome Foundation Birmingham Chapter
Photo from UAB Solar Decathlon website

Living up to its name – awesome – in a nutshell, “Team Alabama” is a project of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, in partnership with Calhoun Community College, that is one of 16 collegiate teams nationwide selected to participate in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon 2017 competition. Over the next year, an interdisciplinary team of students from across the UAB will be engaged in designing and building a house that is completely solar powered.

Furthermore, when Team Alabama has finished the Solar Decathlon competition which culminates in Denver, their “solar -powered” house will return to Birmingham and will be rebuilt at UAB’s Sustainable Microgrid Demonstration Site. The site will be the first neighborhood of its kind in Alabama, and the only living lab of its kind at a college or university in the region.

Checkout this awesome project at UAB Solar Decathlon website.

Pretty awesome how much $1000 can make a difference.

The Awesome Foundation is looking for project proposals to consider and fund.  Learn more about the foundation, the local chapter and how you can participate and/or  apply for a monthly grant at The Awesome Foundation – Birmingham Chapter.

As it says on the Birmingham Chapter webpage – BE Calm and BE AWESOME.

 

 

 

Pat Byington
Pat Byington

Longtime conservationist. Former Executive Director at the Alabama Environmental Council and Wild South. Publisher of the Bama Environmental News for more than 18 years. Career highlights include playing an active role in the creation of Alabama's Forever Wild program, Little River Canyon National Preserve, Dugger Mountain Wilderness, preservation of special places throughout the East through the Wilderness Society and the strengthening (making more stringent) the state of Alabama's cancer risk and mercury standards.

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