The word awesome may be overused these days, but the good work quietly going on behind the scenes at the Newmarket Chamber of Commerce is nothing short of that.
Since its launch in 2012, the Awesome Foundation Newmarket has awarded $60,000 in micro-grants to people or groups with, well, awesome ideas that support the needs of local youth.
The group of 10 trustees each contribute $100 a month of their own money toward the pool of cash that gets doled out to an award recipient. The $1,000-per-project windfall comes with no strings attached, said Diane Farmer, a trustee who is also the foundation’s Awesome Ambassador.
“There’s not a lot of places to go for funding if you’re not a charitable foundation,” Farmer said yesterday at the group’s annual meeting.
Newmarket's Awesome chapter is part of a worldwide movement that finds trustee groups determining their own community’s needs, reviewing and voting on submissions, and selecting a winner each month. Some months there’s a tie, and two individuals or groups split the money, and other months see no grant going out at all. The one constant is that the initiative must benefit young people.
For trustee Michael Croxon, president and CEO of New Roads Automotive Group, reading through the program submissions opens one’s eyes to the scope of the need in Newmarket.
“This is something that I can do personally to give back, outside the corporate scope,” he said.
This past year alone, grants have been awarded to help reduce post-traumatic stress in young people who experienced abuse-related trauma, provide a healthy lunch to elementary school children who would otherwise go hungry, and run an in-school hockey program for low-income and newcomer children to help reduce social isolation.
Just today, J.L.R. Bell Public School teachers Amy Kitchen and Sharon McLean accepted the September 2018 grant award on behalf of their school community, which has 75 students in kindergarten to Grade 4. The $1,000 will allow them to purchase a tower garden, the increasingly popular vertical, aeroponic growing system, and an accompanying light for year-round growth. The unit sells for about $700.
The young students will take turns growing veggies from seeds, participate in the harvest and use the fresh produce in the Grade 4 program called You’re the Chef.
“We believe (the tower garden) will be a unique learning opportunity that could travel from class to class," Kitchen said, after seeing a slide show a parent brought in about their positive experience with the tower garden at home.
"We were just gearing up to fundraise all year for the tower garden," McLean said, adding the small school doesn't receive much funding.
Chamber president and CEO Tracy Walter said submissions are welcome from people of any age, with ideas big and small that are fun or serious.
If you have an awesome idea, you can submit it here
