MARK: What can you tell us about Citizens for Prison Reform, the Lansing-based organization which you founded? Why did you feel as though an organization like yours was necessary, and what are the specific reforms that you’re presently working to have implemented?

LOIS: Citizens for Prison Reform is a statewide, family-run organization. We hold our meetings on the third Saturday of each month in Lansing, as it’s a central location. Our main focus is to educate, support, and unify loved ones of prisoners, so that they can better advocate within the system. By doing this, we hope to raise standards within our prisons, and help to keep supports in place for prisoners.

As far as working on reforms within the walls, we are currently working to address the number of mentally ill inmates who are being held in segregation and solitary confinement, and those with mental illness who are at prisons where no therapeutic programming is available to meet their needs. We are also looking at the treatment, or lack of appropriate treatment and care, for juveniles who are within our adult system. The legislature passed legislation for 2013 that states that the mentally ill, and juveniles up to age 19, are not to be housed in segregation, unless it’s “therapeutic”. Michigan Protection and Advocacy, and the Department of Corrections, agreed in a lawsuit settlement less than a year ago that certain punishment (detention/segregation) is not to be utilized if it is found counter-therapeutic. We know these issues have not been fixed or changed.

We are also asking questions around inadequate and untimely medical treatment, particularly the halting of inmates’ medications when they have known illnesses that require it.

We’d also like a policy requiring every facility to have a Release of Information that all inmates are given to sign upon entry, so that their families can know if they have a medical or mental health crisis. This may seem insignificant, but for families, it is imperative that we be able to know about our loved one’s medical issues and mental health. The the Department of Corrections has not made prisoners or families aware that these release forms need to be signed in order for information to be shared concerning a prisoner’s care.

So many areas needing addressed, it’s challenging at times to determine what should take precedence. It’s time that families’ voices are heard, and that our ideas for cost savings and more humane treatment are seriously looked at.

MARK: How did you come to be involved in prison reform?

LOIS: My son (image right), who has had known mental illness since he was very young, was sent into the adult prison system at age 15, with a minimum of five months to serve. I knew nothing about this system. I had never been exposed to it, nor had anyone in our family. Once he was inside, we learned firsthand what happens to children who are sent into the adult system, under adult operating procedures and policies. There is no in-patient mental health care for young prisoners, outside of putting them in with the most mentally ill adults. Then, they are segregated due to their age.

We found other juveniles within the system, who my son would ask me to help because he was concerned about their treatment. We have seen those with severe cognitive impairments, mental illness, and many who simply do not belong in this system. It has been very painful and heart-wrenching to see. They often wind up in segregation, only allowed out of their cell for three ten-minute showers per week. They become more ill, and, as a result, receive more punishment. It becomes a vicious cycle. Furthermore, in some prisons, the officers have no training with regard to mental illness. That’s alarming.

I gathered my family, friends, and prison family networks together for a letter-writing campaign. We sent our letters to Governor Snyder and our legislators. There is little to no rehabilitation occurring currently. There are a lot of tax dollars being wasted, poured down the drain, though. It should matter to all of us how these people are being treated, and what they are receiving to help them while they are inside the system. We must remember that 95-98% of these people will return to our society. There are many things they could be doing, and learning to help our communities out here, our society. Instead, much of their time is spent idle, which leads to more criminal behavior.

MARK: Is there any reason to be optimistic? From what I read, I’m inclined to think that things aren’t moving in the right direction. If I’m not mistaken, for instance, Michigan has the distinction of being a leader among states that spend more on incarceration than on higher education. And the push for more prison privatization, it would seem, continues to build, in spite of the problems we’ve seen across the country, like in Pennsylvania, where we’ve seen judges taking bribes to hand down lengthy sentences to juvenile defendants. With that said, though, I believe I’ve read somewhere that Michigan’s prison population is beginning to decrease. So, is there some cause to be optimistic?

LOIS: We are cautiously optimistic. We certainly have great concerns about many of the cuts the Department has made under the new Director, with little regard to humane treatment, such as the cutting of psychotropic medications and medications for other illnesses in order to save money, the cutting of food portions and nutrition, the inadequate phone service, which they’re now charging more for, and many other things. The good news is the Department has now agreed to begin a dialogue with leaders and families from our organization around some of these issues and concerns, and allow us to share our ideas. This is currently underway. We see many areas where there could be cost savings, and more humane treatment. Director Heyns has made some positive statements, and enacted a few things that have been a positive shift, such as having college courses available for Levels I or II only, talk of shifting the culture, of officers beginning to be mentors and teachers, rather than just being officers for custody. While the treatment of visitors overall has improved recently, we would like to know that prisoners be treated better as well. We are concerned about the Legislature passing a bill that would allow any privatized company to operate a privatized facility if they can save 10% beyond what the Department is spending. GeoGroup has had three opportunities in Michigan, and they have not proven that they can provide quality, humane treatment, or cost savings. We have seen this from many other states, and private prison companies as well.

MARK: What’s your role within the organization?

LOIS: I am the Co-Founder, and President. We had around six individuals who researched, proofread, and helped with the initial letter writing campaign January 2011 (MLK weekend). I consider all of them Co-Founders. Without their help, it wouldn’t have happened. The organization was not planned… it was born out of this letter campaign. We turned our pain into passion and purpose.

MARK: Tell us about the project that will be funded by the $1,000 Ann Arbor Awesome Foundation grant.

LOIS: We will begin with Washtenaw County, and obtain public records on inmates who have just been sentenced into prison. They will receive a postcard with information about our Resource Guide for Families, Friends and Advocates, and information on our meetings and our organization, as well as other resources to help them as they enter the prison system. Our goal is to get this information to them so they can share it with their support systems prior to being transported into the system, so families and prisoners can know how to navigate up front. We will be working with the Washtenaw County Jail to provide hard copies of the guide that inmates can review while they are waiting to be moved. We are hoping they will work collaboratively with us to provide inmates and their families what they should have up front prior to entering the system. If families do not have computer access, we will mail them a hard copy of the guide. As we set up this project and it is running smoothly, we will then use funds to move the project out to other counties.

As of January 13, there were 43,442 inmates in the system, and approximately 9,000 people are sentenced to prison each year. So we know that we’ll need manpower and significant funding to reach out to all counties in doing this work.

Now, here’s the piece with Ted Koppel, which aired yesterday on Rock Center.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

[note: The photo above is of Lois DeMott's son, Kevin, who was arrested at 13 for armed robbery and imprisoned at 15 as an adult. The image, acquired by way of Freedom of Information Act, was taken at the Ionia Maximum Correctional Facility, where Kevin, who was 19 at the time, had been restrained to prevent injury. The complete story can be found at the Detroit Free Press.]

[note: Video of Lois presenting to the Ann Arbor Awesome Foundation board can be found here.]

Ann Arbor-based photographer Bill Streety has spent years pointing his camera lens at local blues and jazz legends.

Now, with the help of a $1,000 grant from the Ann Arbor Awesome Foundation, Streety will self-publish a book of photos of those musicians that he will donate to local schools, libraries and the bands themselves.

Then he plans to spin off a Web site of the photos that includes the bands’ bios, extra photos, and more information on the groups, which include Bluescasters, BDI Blues Band, Lady Sunshine and the X Band, Chris Canas, Paul Keller, Mr. B and more.

Streety said he is pleased to be able to document the work and the lives of musicians who sometimes play in obscurity but have fascinating stories behind their lives. Some played with legends such as Smokey Robinson and the Stylistics, and all “did live the dream and their passion for their music burns deep.”

He says he wants to give these musicians some acknowledgement and their 15 minutes of fame with a small run of books.

“These are folks who have a passion for the music,” he said. “They’ll come out and give 110 percent whether there is 25 or 250 people watching. They all have day jobs, this is not how they make their living, but it’s fun for them and they are extremely talented.”

He said he was thrilled when he learned A2Awesome was supporting his cause.

“You can’t even imagine my surprise that they thought my idea was awesome. That was really cool! I couldn’t believe it!” he said.

Last month, the A2 Awesome Foundation awarded three $1,000 grants “toward the creation of awesomeness in the Ann Arbor – Ypsilanti area,” which also included funding for performance artist Trevor Stone and 826michigan’s Amanda Uhle…

For those of you who are interested in learning more about these three most recent projects which we’ve funded, you can find my post, which includes video of each of the recipients talking about how they intend to use the money, here.

And, if you’ve got a brilliant idea of your own for something that could be accomplished for $1,000, and significantly raise the local awesome index, fill out our online application and let us know about it. Our next deadline is the last day of November, at midnight.

Oh, and you can “friend” the A2Awesome on Facebook, by clicking here.

A2Awesome Chair Lisa Dengiz had the following to say: “It’s really amazing how many people in our community have brilliant ideas that can be realized with as little as $1,000. When we started this chapter of the Awesome Foundation almost a year ago, we had no idea just how much potential there was. Our grants, among other things, have helped launched Bona Sera Cafe on Michigan Avenue, bringing a renewed sense of vibrancy to downtown Ypsilanti, and put exercise equipment inside Ozone House, improving the lives of local at-risk youth. That’s incredibly gratifying.”

The three individuals/groups who received awards were:

Amanda Uhle on behalf of 826michigan… With their A2Awesome grant, 826michigan will be able, for the first time in four years, to bring the students who participate in their after-school tutoring program at Ypsilanti Middle School to the internationally-recognized non-profit’s creative writing facility (which is secreted behind the Midwest’s leading robot emporium) in Ann Arbor. These field trips will happen several times over the course of the school year. “We’ve made a great deal of progress with these students in the school setting, but we want to go further, and create memorable experiences for them,” says Uhle. “We want to get them out of their schools, where they’ve already been for ten hours, and bring them to this special place that we’ve created. We want them to know that a place like this exists.”

Spontaneous Art (Comprised of Natalie Berry, Chris Sandon and Trevor Stone)… With their A2Awesome grant, the Spontaneous Art team will set out on a Washtenaw County Tour. Performing regularly at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, the group, which is known for creating humorous and approachable interactive performances for the public, rarely has the opportunity to share their work in the greater Ann Arbor area. With the A2Awesome grant, they will be able to engage people in Chelsea, Dexter, Saline, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. They hope their surprise visits to these communities, will not just bring joy and laughter, but create environments where sincere interpersonal connections can flourish.

Bill Streety / Ypsi-Arbor Unsung Musical Heroes… With his $1,000 grant, Bill Streety, a past president of the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival, will photograph and interview at least 40 area jazz and blues musicians, both young and old, as a way of documenting the musical activity taking place in our community today. The results will be self-published in book form (both digital and print), of which approximately 65 copies will be distributed to Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor school libraries. “With the shrinking educational budgets and the reduction in funding for the creative arts,” says Streety, “I see this as a way to preserve a piece of our shared history.”

And it’s kind of shaky, as I was eating cupcakes as I was shooting, but here’s video of the three recipients talking about their projects, which, thanks to these mini grants, will soon be coming to fruition.

A2Awesome, which is composed of 13 individuals, including yours truly, is organized under the banner of the Boston-based Awesome Foundation. The stated purpose of the local Ypsi-Arbor chapter is to provide seed funding for innovative, inspiring, and awesome projects envisioned by fellow community members that might not otherwise evolve into being. The organization intends to make one grant a month for the foreseeable future. All grants will be in the amount of $1,000.

Those with creative, inspired ideas are encouraged to apply for a grant online. Grant deadlines are on the last day of each month. (So you’d better hurry.)

Every month, chapter trustees contribute their own personal funds toward a $1,000, no-strings-attached grant to an awesome project that promises to make life better. In addition to Dengiz and myself, the group includes Dick Soble, Paul Saginaw, Jeff Meyers, Linh Song, Heather MacKenzie, Monique Deschaine, Hans Masing, Alice Liberson, Omari Rush, Tanya Luz and Larry Grant.

Created in 2009, in Boston, the Awesome Foundation now has chapters in 57 cities across the globe. In addition to the Ypsi-Arbor chapter, there are Awesome Foundation outposts in both Detroit and Grand Rapids. Projects funded have included efforts in a wide range of areas including technology, arts, social good, and beyond.

Oh, and congratulations to Ozone House! They’re an awesome organization, and I’m super happy that we were able to help them do this. $1,000 isn’t much, but it will really help improve the lives of hundreds of young people over the coming years, as they fight to overcome the obstacles that have been placed before them.

MARK: How will you be spending the $1,000?

QUINN: First of all, thank you so much to the Ann Arbor Awesome Foundation and their generous donors. It’s a brilliant concept, and we are so lucky to have community members willing to put all this work into our local chapter.

We will be creating a youth fitness room in the basement of Ozone House’s main location in Ann Arbor. My proposal was to outfit the room with a treadmill, stationary bike, dumbbell set, yoga equipment, gym mat, heavy bag and speed bag.

MARK: Why is this important to the young people that Ozone serves?

QUINN: Our young clients are facing an overwhelming number of challenges. This often leads to stress, anger and depression. It is amazing to see how quickly their moods can improve when they have opportunities for physical activities that they enjoy. These are kids who could never afford to take a fitness class, or become a member of a gym. Before coming to Ozone House, they often lack access to nutritious food, and positive recreational activities. Having our own work out space is a wonderful opportunity to let youth blow off some steam in a place where they will be safe and supported. With this space, we’ll be able to bring in local trainers and experts to teach the kids exercise and self-defense techniques. I’m especially excited about the boxing gear, because I’ve recently taken up mixed-martial arts. I’d love to show them how fun and stress-relieving a heavy bag workout can be.

MARK: What, in your opinion, made your application Awesome?

QUINN: I think this project is awesome because it will help so many young people in our community. Each year Ozone House provides emergency housing to over 130 youth, and ongoing services to 300 youth and families. I’d like to make the workout space as accessible as possible for our clients, but even those who don’t get a chance to use it will benefit from this grant. Having a workout space at Ozone House will save the agency a lot of time and money. Every dollar we save on transportation and activities can be put directly into other services for local families. I love that this generous gift from our community will still be making a difference in people’s lives years from now.

MARK: Can you tell us a little about Ozone, its mission, and the current challenges that the organization faces?

QUINN: Ozone House is a community-based, nonprofit agency which helps runaway, homeless and at-risk youth lead safe, healthy, and productive lives through intensive intervention and prevention services. All our services are free of charge.

Many people contact Ozone House through our 24 hour crisis line. Our first priority is making sure the person is safe and able to meet their immediate needs, such as food and housing. From there we determine if they could best be helped through counseling, case management, or our residential services.

Ozone House offers a two week residential counseling program for runaway and homeless youth called Safe Stay. We provide shelter for up to six youth at a time, between the ages of 10 and 17. At Safe Stay, they receive family counseling, life skills training ,and other supportive services. Ozone House also has a transitional living program, Miller House, for youth ages 17 to 20. Miller House focuses on academic success, career services and independent living.

Though Ozone House serves all youth regardless of identity, we offer a lot of support to LGBTQ youth. I co-facilitate the newly renamed Pride Zone program (formerly Queer Zone), a weekly support group for LGBTQ and questioning youth ages 13 to 20. We meet Wednesday nights at the Ypsilanti Ozone House.

As you mentioned, Ozone House has had to adapt to cuts in non-profit funding in the past few years. Funding concerns have led to recent changes our Ypsilanti Youth Drop-In Center, now called the Ypsilanti Ozone House. We’ve had to reduce the number of unstructured hours when youth can “drop-in”, but still offer daily hot meals, computer access, showers, laundry, case management, and career services free of charge.

DO YOU HAVE AN AWESOME IDEA?

If you have an awesome idea of your own, please consider applying for a grant. All you have to do is click here and fill out the submission form to get the ball rolling.

And please share this post with all of your brilliant, creative, and visionary friends in S.E. Michigan. We have money to give, and we’d love to know if there are ambitious, inspiring ideas out there where $1,000 could be creatively leveraged to really make a difference.

BACKGROUND:

A2 Awesome is organized under the banner of the Boston-based Awesome Foundation. The stated purpose of the local group, according to our chairwoman, Lisa Dengiz, is “to have fun by providing streamlined seed funding for creative projects that will bring surprise, delight and joy to the community.” The organization intends to make one grant a month for the foreseeable future. All grants will be in the amount of $1,000.

Chapter trustees contribute their own personal funds toward the $1,000, no-strings-attached grant each month, to an awesome project that promises to make life better. In addition to me and Lisa, trustees include Dick Soble, Paul Saginaw, Jeff Meyers, Linh Song, Heather MacKenzie, Monique Deschaine, Hans Masing, Alice Liberson, Omari Rush, Tanya Luz and Larry Gant.

Created in 2009 in Boston, the Awesome Foundation now has chapters in over 20 cities across the globe. In addition to the new Ann Arbor / Ypsilanti chapter, there are Awesome Foundation outposts in both Detroit and Grad Rapids. Projects funded have included efforts in a wide range of areas including technology, arts and social good.

And, here’s an interesting aside, as long as we’re discussing Bennett. I received an email a year or so ago from a fellow who claimed to have information about the murder of one of Henry Ford’s mistresses, on the grounds of Greenfield Village, at the hands of Bennett and his goons. As details were never forthcoming, and since it could well have been made up, I never noted it here, but I do wonder just how many people Bennet killed for Ford, and whether it’s conceivable that any of the ugly business was done on either the Village grounds, near Hitler’s boyhood home, or, here, in Ypsi.

Here, by way of background, is a clip from a short article about Bennett, and his role at Ford.

…Shortly before World War I, workers flocked to Detroit by the thousands, where Henry Ford promised prosperity by offering the then unprecedented wage of $5 per day for industrial workers. Ford opened job positions to African-Americans, in a age when they were denied many industrial jobs. Ford’s showcase was the River Rouge plant, an industrial power house where every auto part was not only assembled, but also fabricated.

In 1929 when the Great Depression struck, Ford cut back his workforce. Detroit, like many industrial cities, badly suffered through the economic outrage, with evictions and hunger.

Fearing communist influence, Ford fought unionization. He was aided in this effort by Fr. Charles Coughlin, a Detroit Catholic priest who won a national audience, first supporting Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, but then turning against it, offering race-based and anti-Semitic diatribes. Ford hired a former prize fighter, Harry Bennett, as his security chief, and Bennett ruthlessly went after any union sympathizer.

In 1932 hungry Detroit workers marched on the Rouge. The march was organized by Communist Party members and four were killed on the “Ford Hunger March.”

Eventually the union came to the auto industry, with General Motors the first to sign after the 1936 sit-down strikes, which began in Flint, Michigan. Ford finally signed a United Auto Workers (UAW) contract in 1941, but not before the “Battle of the Overpass,” where Bennett’s thugs beat Walter Reuther and other union organizers trying to pass leaflets at the Rouge’s gate…

Sadly, as very few in this country seem to know their labor history, and of the sacrifices that were made by our ancestors, who, in many cases, gave their lives so that we might have a middle class, a 40 hour work week, and laws keeping children out of factories, I fear that we’re going to have to face the likes of Harry Bennett again.

The funds were given, in a brown paper bag, to Nathan Ayers, of Ann Arbor, who will be using the money to construct two bike-powered vegetable grow racks, which will be used in the K-12 science classes he teaches in Ann Arbor and Detroit. According to Ayers, the intention is to create a closed loop system to demonstrate the principles of permaculture – a design and engineering philosophy based on ecology, which has as its objective the creation of sustainable food, energy and community infrastructure systems.

Ayers explains it as follows… “In this system, the human rides the bike, the bike produces energy, the energy powers the LED grow light, the grow light produces food, the human eats the food and has the energy needed to again ride the bike. Its a set of relationships that form a complete circle, which are all dependent on each other to function.”

Ayers hopes to use the funds to have the first bike built by April, so that he, and his students, can begin sprouting plants in early spring.

Here, for those who are interested in knowing more about Nathan’s project, is a brief interview that I conducted with him a few days ago.

MARK: Can you tell us a little about yourself?

NATHAN: Born and raised in Ann Arbor, I had a lot of great teachers, mentors and exposure to important things like music, art, film and critical thinking. As a kid, I played outside a lot and fell in love with nature. I did not have an affinity for science or math or anything like that growing up. I was in funk bands and played water polo in high school. I went to Indiana University and bounced around the roulette wheel of majors until I landed in Sociology, studying race and socio-economic systems. I got into activism through music while in college, and helped start the Hip Hop Congress. At IU, I also got real into self-sufficiency and alternative energy. This was around Y2K, and I think that maybe spooked me, but I was super fascinated with being able to live and thrive in nature. I started reading schematics for suitcase sized solar panel systems and portable power. After college, I traveled around, living in Australia and Sweden for a bit, and saw some really good examples of healthy and happy people and cultures. I eventually came back to Ann arbor around 2005 and began working for the Ann Arbor Public Schools. This was right when Michigan’s economy was really starting to tank (hey, at least we were first in something). My sociology degree didn’t mean much and I was originally hired as a lunch room supervisor. Within a couple months, a job opened up as a special needs paraprofessional and that’s what I did for about 4 years. I loved my time working in the schools, amazing people, kids and co-workers. During this time, I also went back to school and obtained certifications in solar photovoltaics and organic agriculture. I got a bit active around Ann Arbor’s green scene and helped start the now defunct Transition Ann Arbor. Through Transition Towns, I was introduced to Permaculture, – a design and engineering system based on the science of ecology. The philosophies and principles of a design school focused on integrating humanity’s food, energy and infrastructure with natural ecosystems and patterns was beyond inspiring. So much so that I quit my job and went out to California to take a permaculture design course. During my experience there, I was launched head and hands first into the world of agro-ecology, bio mimicry, appropriate technology and systems thinking, and that’s where my mind’s been ever since. I turned my house into a permaculture/makerspace R&D lab, and in 2011, began teaching permaculture at Washtenaw Community College. Last spring, we started a permaculture research and education company called Chiwara Permaculture, and have several problem based learning projects with K-12 schools and communities in Ann Arbor and Detroit.

MARK: What were the origins of this project? Had you been thinking about this for a while, or did the idea just come to you after hearing that, though A2Awesome, there was funding available for unique, impactful, or otherwise interesting, projects?

NATHAN: I have had the idea for this system for a while, utilizing the LED grow lights and the battery pack, but I’m definitely not the first person to think of amazing and useful things to do with a bicycle. I think we will eventually look back and see the bicycle as one of the most amazing machines humans ever invented. There is so much work that can be done with one, aside from transportation, like grinding grains, washing and drying clothes, pumping water and producing electricity. Permaculture design ultimately creates closed loop feedback mechanisms between systems, and that’s what I tried to do with this food production unit. The human rides the bike, the bike produces energy, the energy powers the grow light, the grow light produces food, the human eats the food, the human is sustained and can again ride the bike. Its a set of relationships that form a complete circle, which are all dependent on each other to function.

MARK: Now I’ve got a technical question. Do you think it’s possible, though a bike-powered generator such as the one you intend to build, to generate the lumens necessary to grow vegetables without natural light? I should add that I think it’s an awesome project regardless, as it will, at the very least, demonstrate to kids just how much power there actually is in sunlight.

NATHAN: I’ve got two answers: Yes and I think so. The ‘lumens necessary to grow vegetables’ are a function of the LED grow light. These LED systems were allegedly developed by NASA as they were researching ways to grow food for extended missions in space, like, to mars. The science they discovered was that many types of vegetative plants only need two wavelengths of color to develop: red and blue. Through the magic of R&D they started making super efficient, high lumen LED grow panels that were red and blue. There are huge indoor commercial growing operations in the Netherlands that are utilizing this technology, and I’ve even grown a few plants with some basic LED panels. So, yes, the indoor growing technology works. Now the “I think so”, and what I think you’re really asking, is whether or not this is a viable system to grow food at home? We know that the max wattage a human can put out on a given bicycle session is around 250 to 300watts. Utilizing 2 bikes, and 2 people pedaling an hour a day, with an interchangeable 2 battery system, our numbers are promising. Like you mentioned, there are a lot of lessons and fields of study embedded into this one design, so the multi-discipline educational prospects in a school setting are real inspiring.

MARK: Now that you have the money, what’s your next step? And just how long do you think that it will take before you have a working system that you and your students can put to use?

NATHAN: We will start acquiring the parts and pieces, assembling the motor and battery components, and then start testing how much wattage we can produce and store. We’ll begin testing different plant stocks for production and caloric numbers. I’m hoping we’ll have a working system with sprouts by April. I’m really excited to have the money to build a proper battery system. The bicycle generator is one of many hybrid systems I’ve thought of, that all power these portable, or what I call “compartmentalized” battery systems.. Funding this project will propel us to think about new and innovative ways to make and store energy at home. If you want a hint at some of the energy systems we’ve been thinking about, I’ve got one word: Drums.

MARK: Where might people see the unit in action once it’s up and running? You mentioned that you’ll likely be using with students in both Detroit and Ann Arbor, is that correct?

NATHAN: Yes, after we get the unit operating and producing, we will then be able to take it to our partner schools in Ann Arbor and Detroit so that students can design and build their own. There are so many areas for learning and research, and I can’t wait to see what kinds of ideas our students come up with. We also plan to post videos and the design schematics for the peddle powered vegetable grow rack on our website, open source style, so people can build and improve upon them. Hopefully it will someday make the rounds at various re-skilling festivals and community sustainability events.

MARK: As our first recipient, do you have any words of encouragement for others that might be thinking about applying.

NATHAN: Yes, DO IT! Get your ideas down on paper. Being able to translate an idea into a great proposal is an extremely valuable skill, something we should be teaching every student how to do. It’s really the art of effective communication. If there is one thing the world needs right now, it is for really good ideas to be effectively communicated and implemented. Thanks to the A2Awesome for helping a new generation of ideas get out there.

I should add that we had a lot of very good applications this first round. I know I complain a lot about stuff on this site, but we really are fortunate to be living in a community where we have so many bright, creative people working to solve the problems that face us. It’s truly inspiring, and I’m thankful that, due to some weird series of events, I’m in a position not only to interact with these people, but to maybe even help some of them, through A2Awesome, get their projects off the ground.

If you have an awesome idea, please consider applying for this month’s grant. All you have to do is click here and fill out the submission form to get the ball rolling.

BACKGROUND:

A2 Awesome is organized under the banner of the Boston-based Awesome Foundation. The stated purpose of the local group, according to our chairwoman, Lisa Dengiz, is “to have fun by providing streamlined seed funding for creative projects that will bring surprise, delight and joy to the community.” The organization intends to make one grant a month for the foreseeable future. All grants will be in the amount of $1,000.

Chapter trustees contribute their own personal funds toward the $1,000, no-strings-attached grant each month, to an awesome project that promises to make life better. In addition to me and Lisa, trustees include Dick Soble, Paul Saginaw, Jeff Meyers, Linh Song, Heather MacKenzie, Monique Deschaine, Hans Masing, Alice Liberson, Omari Rush, Tanya Luz and Larry Gant.

Created in 2009 in Boston, the Awesome Foundation now has chapters in over 20 cities across the globe. In addition to the new Ann Arbor / Ypsilanti chapter, there are Awesome Foundation outposts in both Detroit and Grad Rapids. Projects funded have included efforts in a wide range of areas including technology, arts and social good.

And please share this post with all of your brilliant, creative, and visionary friends in S.E. Michigan. We have money to give, and we’d love to know if there are ambitious, inspiring ideas out there where $1,000 could really make a difference.