PROPOSAL: Gathering for Girls

Deb Reinhert & Big Sisters

Describe your project.

Gathering for Girls is a movement to inspire and motivate women to take action in their communities by serving as mentors for young girls. Current mentors (Big Sisters) will invite friends to dinner and use the time to demonstrate the beauty and impact that mentoring can have in the life of a girl. Each mentor will use her personal story to awaken a sense of service that inspires her guests to take action towards social justice by giving girls a chance to live to their full potential.

Big Sisters know that inspiring a young girl, believing in her, empowering her to believe in herself, has the chance to transform not only that one girl’s life, but also to transform an entire community of people. Inspiration is contagious. 

Big Sisters will educate their friends on the power of mentorship.

• 88.4% of girls (Little Sisters) matched with Big Sisters finish High School.
• 88.6% of girls matched with Big Sisters go to college.
• 99.2% of girls matched with Big Sisters express avoidance of risky behaviors such as drug and tobacco use.
• 94.4% of girls matched with Big Sisters express improved relationships with adults in their lives.

How will you use the grant to make your idea happen?

The grant will be used to supply the food for the meals shared between Big Sisters and their networks. Big Sisters who host dinners will have the option of using the money to develop photos or create a scrapbook that demonstrates the relationship they have built with their Little Sister. These materials will be used to exemplify the importance of sisterhood and the impact of mentorship.

We hope to give 20 Big Sisters $50 each to buy the food and materials to host a Gathering for Girls. Our goal will be to inspire 10 women at each Gathering for Girls to become a mentor, allowing us to match 200 girls with Big Sisters.

Why and to whom is your project important?

Our project is important to the 500 girls in Boston’s neighborhoods who are waiting to be matched to a Big Sister and have been waiting for 6 months to a year. Our longest-waiting Little Sisters come from Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury.

• 72% of our Little Sisters come from Boston:
• 23% come from Dorchester.
• Another 23% come from Roxbury.

Little Sisters come from a wide-range of ethnic, socio-economic, and family backgrounds. However, our typical Little Sister is 12 years old, living with a single mother in Dorchester or Roxbury and is black or Hispanic.

This project is important because finding the mentors for these 500 girls will ensure that each of them has the support and encouragement to live up to her full potential, whatever that happens to be. With the love and support of a Big Sister, each of these 500 girls will learn how to speak up for herself, will have the opportunity to try new experiences, build understanding and respect across differences, and join a sisterhood of strong, supportive women. Little Sisters, supported by their Big Sisters, develop confidence, courage, and competence to learn, live, and thrive in Greater Boston.

PROPOSAL: Community Mural on Somerville’s First Urban Farm

Kristin DelViscio — winner, $950

Describe your project.

Somerville’s first urban farm is South Street Farm, built in April 2012 by a team of teenagers working to, in their words, “Create Life!” The farm sits on a previously abandoned parking lot on the edge of the city, amid brownfields and junkyards. Every harvest is sold at the Mystic Mobile Market in low income neighborhoods and donated to local food pantries. Building this farm has created positive momentum within the Somerville community for growing local organic food. South Street Farm is nestled on land near a future Green Line extension stop. At the moment, the space is bordered by a 9-foot corrugated fence, which, in a post-industrial kind of way, is an interesting feature. In order to solidify this as a community space which accommodates people of all socioeconomic brackets, we are painting a mural to reflect important elements of this community in addition to improving the aesthetic quality of the farm. We’re not just going to slap on any mural though, we’re painting a data mural! The mural we want to paint will visually represent both food deserts and solutions regarding hunger within Somerville. The purpose of a data mural is not just to beautify the farm but also to display useful information and resources around support for hunger relief in Somerville.

How will you use the grant?

The grant will be used to hire a local artist, the wonderful Emily Bhargava, who will lead a community data mural workshop to create an appropriate visual out of the quantitative data on hunger in Somerville. Emily’s extensive experience painting data murals in South America and the U.S. will ensure the visual will be created by the community and the mural itself will be engaging for all viewers. Funds will also go towards paint and materials for volunteers to prep and prime the fence.

Why and to whom is your project important?

Somerville is the most densely populated city in New England, with 77% of its area paved. Among the slew of health equity concerns are access to fresh produce and a lack of green spaces in the city. South Street Farm not only empowers underserved teenagers with leadership trainings and practical skills with which to carry on the sustainability movement, but also serves as a respite for all citizens of Somerville from the relentless concrete of the several highways and bus lines running through the city. Furthermore, South Street Farm’s harvests supply the Mystic Mobile Market with fresh, affordable, local produce. Low income residents are customers of this market who do not have ready access to fresh food and would greatly benefit from access to resources regarding hunger solutions in Somerville. Adding a mural to this farm will enhance the community aspect of the farm itself.

PROPOSAL: Fresh Food Generation

Jackson Renshaw & Cassandria Campbell — winner, $1,500

Describe your project.

Fresh Food Generation is a farm to plate food truck that serves low-income neighborhoods while providing employment opportunities for 17–21 year-olds in the Greater Boston Area. We provide healthy and affordable on-the-go food options in underserved neighborhoods that have limited access to high quality foods. Our produce is sourced from local urban gardens and farms. Through taste testing and community involvement, menu items are carefully selected to satisfy the palate of our ethnically diverse customer base.

Fresh Food Generation empowers youth by placing them at the forefront of the business. Youth are hired in a year-long leadership program to operate the business and become food educators in the communities we serve. In addition to preparing and selling the food, they learn to develop marketing strategies and facilitate food education workshops and events.

How will you use the grant?

We will use the grant money to create an easy-to-use and interactive website and create a video that explains who we are as an organization and as individuals. We want to continue to generate excitement about our organization and gain more community support to see this project through.

Why and to whom is your project important?

Low income neighborhoods in Greater Boston have insufficient access to healthy affordable food. In response to this problem, there is a growing grassroots movement to connect low income households to high quality food through farmers markets and urban farming. This movement has primarily focused on providing low income consumers with fresh produce. This response is based on traditional beliefs that low income households do not spend their money ‘eating out.’ However, the fast pace environment that we live in makes it unrealistic to expect households, no matter what their income, to prepare all of their meals at home. Low income households need access to prepared healthy food options and we hope to provide that.

Proposal: You're the Expert

Chris Duffy — 1st place $750

Describe your idea.

You’re the Expert is a live show and a podcast which connects the academic community and the artistic, creative community in the Greater Boston area. Each show centers around an expert in a somewhat obscure field, for example microbiology. The show begins with creative and hilarious submissions from comedians, actors, and artists throughout Boston about what they believe a microbiologist does all day. These contributors produce a short piece without doing any research whatsoever on the topic. They just work off what they know on the top of their head. Then they present their work live while the expert and I watch. After each piece, the microbiologist dissects how wildly wrong (or right!) the ideas about his/her field were and then we end with an interview where we find out what a microbiologist actually does all day. It’s funny, it’s interactive, and you end up actually learning something.

How will you use your grant?

I already have a space, experts, and contributors lined up. A Feast grant would allow me to hire a sound technician, to rent audio recording equipment (3 microphones, cables, etc.), and, most importantly, would allow me to pay contributor. I feel strongly about valuing the time and effort of artists in the city.

Why and to whom is your project important?

You’re the Expert is important because we’re surrounded by some of the most important thinkers and innovators in the world. Everyday we sit next to Nobel laureates on the T and don’t even realize it. You’re the Expert creates an engaging and exciting space for academics to share their research with a new audience and for performers to be inspired by groundbreaking new ideas. You’re the Expert is a live manifestation of the amazing creative output that results when left brain thinkers and the right brain artists are brought together.

What is the expected status of your project by the time of the next Feast?

If You’re the Expert receives a Feast grant, we will have three live events (each with 2–3 experts) by the next Feast and we will have put out approximately six 30-minute podcasts.

Proposal: Big Class Boston

Alaina Gurdak — 1st place $1,055

Describe your project.
Big Class Boston connects public school students with creative adults to create collaborative books for the community. The structure of the project is simple: students write their own imaginative fiction, and area artists create illustrations for their stories. A compilation of their creative teamwork is published as a book and presented during a book release event. Each student and artist that participates receives a complimentary copy of their book, while additional copies are sold during the book release event and/or at local bookstores as a way of engaging the larger community.

How will you use the grant to make your idea happen?
The funds from this grant will be used to cover the cost of printing the books, and allow us to purchase promotional materials for the book release event. Any additional funds would be used to get us started on our next Big Class Boston book project.

Why and to whom is your project important?
Big Class Boston is focused on expanding the classroom through a simple but poignant call for collaboration. This creative process empowers writing and artistic collaboration between students from public school to art school, while also connecting with the community at large. With the help of some amazing students and talented volunteers, Big Class Boston hopes to show the public what can happen when people (regardless of age) work together.

If you win, what is the expected status of your project by the time the next Feast Mass rolls around in 3–4 months?
The next Big Class Boston book project will be completed at the end of May, to celebrate the nearness of summer for the participating public school students.

Proposal: Publication Studio Boston

Nate Grossman, Leah Craig & Paul Butler — 2nd place $250

Describe Your Idea.
Publication Studio Boston is the most recent sibling studio in an international collective of independent presses. Equipped with a small arsenal of readily available tools (printers, perfect binder, guillotine cutter), we are able to publish books on demand, both quickly and affordably, eliminating the cost and waste associated with traditional methods of publishing. Our books are composed of content both collected from local artists and authors and appropriated from other sources. Upon completion, books are shared between all the sibling Publication Studios across the world and are made available for purchase and online browsing through our free reading commons.

How Will You Use Your Grant?
The printer we have been using at Publication Studio Boston has been replaced by a newer model and ink cartridges are no longer available, so the grant money would go towards purchasing a new printer, ideally one that prints in color, allowing us to print color books in-house. Any additional funds would be used towards a supply of ink.

What is the expected status of your project by the next Feast?
If Publication Studio Boston receives the grant, the printer will be purchased immediately, and production will begin. We currently have three titles ready for print with one more nearing completion and many more on the way. By the time of the next Feast we would ideally have a large range of titles for sale in Boston and elsewhere.

Proposal: Bank of America Projection

John Hulsey & City Life / Vida Urbana — 1st place $600

Describe Your Idea.
In November, a group of Boston-area residents and homeowners facing foreclosure by Bank of America will project their stories onto the front facade of Bank of America in downtown Boston. The projection will happen at dusk, as people are leaving work. From the street, passersby will hear people’s voices echoing in the plaza while their words flash across the surface of the building. The voices will speak about the struggles faced by families in difficult economic times. They will speak about neighborhoods, and the meaning of home. They will speak directly to the banks that have foreclosed on their homes. Over the course of the evening, ten stories will be heard.

The event is being organized by members of City Life / Vida Urbana and the Bank Tenants Association, local grassroots community organizations that have been fighting to keep people in their homes. It is conceived as a form of direct action and will be part of a larger campaign to put pressure on the banks to stop post-foreclosure evictions by bringing increased public visibility to these ten cases.

How Will You Use Your Grant?
Due to the sensitive nature of this project, we are hoping to find extra funds to cover the costs of projection, insurance, and legal support.

What is the expected status of your project by the next Feast?
The event will happen in November, and will have documentation that can be shown at the next Feast.

Proposal: Freedom Art Theatre Retreat

Ilana M. Brownstein — 2nd place $300

Describe your project or idea.
The Freedom Art Theatre Retreat for Boston Area Artists will pluck 9 emerging theatre makers (3 each of playwrights, designers, and dramaturgs) from the hot, humid urban jungle that is Boston in August, and transport them to a lush, green, woodsy cabin in the Maine woods for a week. While there, they will be encouraged to think outside the box; to innovate through unexpected collaborations; and to let their relocation into a natural space provide fertile ground for new artistic growth. The participants will be drawn from the ranks of Boston’s young, hungry fringe theatres, who are eager to produce new work by emerging playwrights, but who have few formalized infrastructures for supporting that work in development. The goal of the Retreat is to let loose the bonds of production budgets, and encourage these teams to create the boldest, bravest work possible.

How will you use the grant to make your idea happen?
Considering the number of artists this project will sponsor, and the amount of time we get to spend in the woods, the total budget for the Freedom Art Theatre Retreat is surprisingly low. For under $3000, I’ll be able to rent a vacation property for a week in August, rent a van to transport the artists, and pay for gas. Art + travel + housing = not too shabby. Also, a grant from Feast Mass would be a huge help in the growth of our grassroots funding campaign, providing seed money, and sparking confidence and excitement in a growing network of supporters.
Most importantly, if you choose to fund us, your few hundred dollars translates into specific and tangible support of 9 other artists, and all their collaborators at their home theatres.

If you win, what is the expected status of your project by the time the next Feast Mass rolls around?
10–12 weeks after the next meeting of Feast Mass coincides exactly with the timing of the Freedom Art Theatre Retreat, which is currently scheduled for the 2nd week of August.
By that time, I will have completed total fundraising efforts to meet my $3000 goal (or I will pay for it out of pocket), I will have solicited and vetted applicants to the Retreat, and will have met twice already with the participants as a group.
Then, we go make art in the woods!
Finally, in September, Playwrights’ Commons will throw a bash where Retreat participants will get to present their work to other local art makers and fringe theatre producers. Ideally, this will seed multiple new projects at theatres around Boston.

Proposal: Contain This: How Your Urban Garden Grows

Erika Hess — 1st place $600

Describe Your Idea.
At a time where prices are high and incomes are low, most of us have become champion comparison shoppers. We navigate not only the streets of the city but the aisles of the grocery store. Unfortunately for many, the first thing to go is high quality produce. Last year I began my adventure into urban gardening. From window containers, a 3 foot plot of land, to kid's swimming pool: growing your own produce is simple and cheap when you know how to do it. I want to help others save money while not having to sacrifice eating high quality food. Good food shouldn't just be for those who can afford it.

Along with teaching others how to grow their own produce, I want to teach how to compost on a small scale (trust me, it's way cleaner and easier than you think) and how to use recycled containers such as water bottles, coffee cans and jars to keep costs low. Education is not only power but saved cash and nutritious!

For one month, (or longer if money allows) I will bike around to different areas with my goods in tow and set up a table to teach/demonstrate what I have described above. I will demonstrate how to make containers out of recycled bottles, how to grow lettuce and herbs in these containers, composting and giving out mini how-to booklets illustrated by yours truly. Those that want to get dirty can plant with me and leave with their own seedling! How cool, right? Your own little plant, THAT YOU CAN EAT!

How Will You Use Your Grant?
The money supplied will be used to buy soil, seeds, seedlings (I will be able to supply some of my own) and print mini how-to booklets. The rest will be used to buy extra tools for participants: gloves, hand spades, scissors. I have the bike, bike trailer and table. I plan on doing this every Saturday for one month.

If you win, what is the expected status of your project by the time the next Feast Mass rolls around?
I will have gone out and given demonstrations in Boston and Brooklyn and will have documented the interactions in photos and video. I will also have set up a blog where I will encourage people I interact with to post pictures of their own urban gardens, DIY ideas, and contact me with questions.

Proposal: SkyLight

LJ Frezza — 2nd place $250

Describe your idea.
“SkyLight” is an ongoing public art project that will take place on the red line of the MBTA. I intend to use a cell phone camera to record video of the sky along the train’s route (from a car). Then, using a small battery powered projector and a video ipod, I will ride along the line and project that video onto the ceiling of the train car, creating a sort of virtual skylight. The idea came from my observations riding the T, noticing that passengers generally spend their time avoiding eye contact and trying to separate themselves from their commute. It’s almost taken for granted that we (as citizens of a contemporary US city) now find ourselves increasingly disconnected from our immediate surroundings. Public transit technologies cause us to focus on destination rather than the areas between our points of departure and arrival, and contemporary telecommunications technologies increasingly connect us to information over large distances at the cost of attention to our immediate environment. By projecting a video of the sky as it appears above the train, I hope to ground the audience in their physical location beyond the train car—and by presenting a public spectacle, I hope to make viewers more aware of their shared experience as passengers on the MBTA. Utilizing a cell phone, ipod, and train car as my primary media, I hope to draw passengers on the T into a form of participatory spectatorship. The focus of the project isn’t merely the image itself, but also the reactions of its participant/spectators and, in a sense, “SkyLight” is as much a social experiment as an art project.

How will you use your grant?
This project requires the purchase of a small, battery powered video projector, estimated at $200–$250 as well as a portable video player, (an iPod nano, specifically), estimated at $150.

What is the expected status of your project by the next Feast?
I plan to begin recording video of the red line in the following weeks, and I should be actively riding the line end to end (projecting video along the way) two to three times a week by the end of the month, and I plan to continue with the project for the next six months or so.

Proposal: Girls Who Rock

Charlotte Huffman — 1st place $500

Describe your idea.
Girls Who ROCK! is a new after school club dedicated to empowering girls in grades 4 to 8 through DIY music and art. This club is being run at East Somerville Community School, an awesome bilingual public elementary school near Sullivan Square. It is being written and run by the schools art teacher and guidance counselor, with awesome rock n' roll and English teachers to join up this winter. Why does this club rock? Because in this club each girl will lead her very own band. The girls will learn communication and conflict resolution skills.They will learn about awesome girls who rocked before them and they will teach each other about music they like. They will make their own t-shirts, stickers and merch. They will write their own songs. They will play in each others bands. They will record their own music. They will make their own costumes. They will make album artwork and take psychedelic band pictures. They will have their own CDs. They will make show posters.  As a final culmination of the school year they will ROCK a show in the spring!

How will you use your grant?
Girls Who ROCK! will use the Feast grant to pay for our very first electric guitar! We really need one of those! The rest of the money will be used to buy the art supplies we need (like silk screens, t-shirts, dental floss, fabric and CDs) to make incredible rock art, costumes, and merchandise (like  band shirts, stickers, patches, posters and album covers.)

What is the expected status of your project by the next Feast?
By the winter Feast we will be learning guitar and bass and we will be working on singing really really loud! We will have chosen our band names and we will be working on finding the "sound" we want our bands to have, a little girl groups of the 60's over here, a little hip hop over there, a little punk rock all over the place. We will have designed and silk screened our first band shirts and made our first round of awesome stickers. Where will we be in February? We will be rocking out!

Proposal: The Art of Traveling: Urban Sojourns

Christian Greer — 1st place $400

Describe your project.
We are the students (and teacher) of a class entitled, the Art of Traveling: Urban Sojourns, currently in session at a Boston-based "free skool” called Corvid College. If selected, we will use the Feast funds to create and publish an anthology of our class’s adventures, reflections, maps, and the secrets we found while traveling, both in the Boston area and in the texts we read.

Founded on its opposition to outrageous tuition fees, endless bureaucracy, and everything that made college a hassle castle instead of a place to better one’s life in the here and now, Corvid College is an experiment in radical education. Our college has no admissions office (everyone is welcome!), and is based on providing an education that is organized around competencies, projects, independent studies, and, primarily, curiosity. so, instead of grades, ruthless competition, and oppressive hierarchies, Corvid offers convivial learning based on curiosity and mutual interest. Being unrestrained by institutional interests, the teaching collective has taken it upon themselves to teach the things they like, which subsequently, tend to be more radical/ interesting/enjoyable.

How will Feast funding make your idea happen?
As of now we have focused on locating and mapping as much off-the-radar or “grey zone” geography we can find—this includes abandoned factories, places to swim at night, and the like. We want to make the anthology zine as a comprehensive DiY artifact that we, as well as the other people in the college and community, can use for reference and enjoyment. the money will be used to purchase the materials (high quality paper, printer ink, binding glue) to make the zines.

The 10-week class finishes in late august, so we plan on having our zine out by then!

Proposal: Boston Food Truck Festival

Christine Liu — 1st place $320

Describe your project.

I would like to organize a Food Truck Festival in Boston this summer to highlight the breadth of delicious street food that the Boston area offers, as well as bringing together adventurous and hungry community members to commingle in a festive space. Hot dogs, ice cream, falafel, tea, sandwiches, whatever. Other cities have vibrant food truck scenes—Los Angeles, Austin, Portland Oregon, to name a few—and Boston should deserve to be on that map. The invitation would definitely be open to anyone—so a one-time event, daytime hours during a weekend—with free entry (or a nominal suggested donation), and each truck selling their specific wares. The point is that not all the trucks are in the same place at the same time. We could have some trucks that would sponsor free samples—such as Wheeler’s Ice Cream—and beverage sponsors (Honest Tea? Polar?). It would also be a huge incentive for the food trucks, who can promote their usual hours and site.

How will you use Feast funding?

envision the money would go toward getting the requisite permits and licenses to have all the trucks serve food legally for the one-time event. Additionally, promotional materials like postcards, signage, coffee for the gophers, etc.

If you win, what is the expected status of your project by the time of the next Feast?

Hopefully completed or just about! I think it would be a fabulous thing to do in the thick of July or August.