Katie Ford’s recent project, Ramble League, uses the intimate, co-working experience of a tandem bicycle ride as the start for conversations with local artists. Ford is an artist and printmaker exploring social and spatial relationships. She moved to Pittsburgh in 2012, intrigued by its emergent cultural scene and what she senses is a “collective momentum”…

Cindy Mendoza is a mother of three boys whose passion is motherhood.  She grew up in both Wilkinsburg and the Hill District and her grant winning project, Diverse Mothering Initiative, is a reflection of that urban childhood. The things she most values in life–writing, reading, exploration, and conversation–revolve around children or ideas and experiences she…

Andy Prisbylla serves as the project administrator for the Mobile Sculpture Workshop (MSW), a pilot program of the Industrial Arts Cooperative (IAC), whose mission is to inspire artistic literacy in the Pittsburgh region by offering enrichment opportunities that advance the understanding and process of sculpture-making artists and their work. MSW is a Pennsylvania-based summer workshop…

As The Global Switchboard’s short video will point out, “In Pittsburgh, globally focused individuals and organizations are often too isolated; they lack a platform for collaboration, so we’re building one. The Global Switchboard will be a shared working space for members committed to international development, global education in Pittsburgh and abroad, and community empowerment.” Brandon…

For the last three years, the City of Pittsburgh has offered South Side residents public space and water at individual garden plots at Bandi Schaum Field. There are nearly 90 plots, all of them filled, which qualifies this particular garden as one of the largest community gardens in Western Pennsylvania. The garden was planned with…

Awesome Pittsburgh recently awarded $1,000 to Farm Truck Foods for its team’s solution to Pittsburgh’s food desert dilemma. As defined by the USDA, a food desert is any “urban-neighborhood and/or rural town without ready access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food.” Seven food deserts are attributed to Pittsburgh, and the three co-founders of Farm Truck…

Keith Reimink owns and operates DALIBORKAfilms, a small Pittsburgh-based film production company. His most recent documentary idea is the story of Homewood resident Marty McDaniels whose hobby is building and racing remote control cars (RC racing),. Marty’s project earned a recent Awesome Pittsburgh $1,000 grant. For the past several summers, Marty has been creating a…

Behind every awesome idea stands an awesome pig.  Or so veterinary surgeon Karen Phillips would argue. Her work at both the Western PA Humane Society and the Animal Rescue League opened her eyes to the growing number of unwanted farm animals. Inspired by Isaac, a stray pig found on the Pittsburgh city streets in mid-winter,…

Last month’s Awesome Pittsburgh grant was awarded to Nima Dehghani and Behzad Tabibian, for their winsome Kiss for Peace! Project. It seemed particularly well-timed for the holidays; the project promotes peace, love and hope—ideas which are especially inspirational between the end of an old year and the start of a new one. Nima is an…