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…

Our 25th award goes to Ann Payne and Kristen Reynolds, two graduate students of Chatham University’s Falk School of Sustainability. Their vision is to grow and diversify watershed stewardship by increasing awareness of the human-water relationship as well as promoting lifestyle choices that support a healthier watershed. Their vision will come to life through The Drop Project,…

Two years ago, Meta Mesh founder Adam Longwill wanted to make a private Wi-Fi connection to his friends’ houses. After testing various antenna designs and routing technologies for a year, he decided not to limit his network to just his friends. He recruited a team on-line, and one year ago, founded his company, Meta Mesh,…

The study of language and objects looms large in the life of local artist Brandon Boan, who currently lives and works in Wilkinsburg. Recently dedicating himself to the practice of typesetting and lithography, Boan plans to have a working linotype shop with photo lithography capabilities up and running by next year. Brandon named the shop…

Jasmine Cho decided to ride the wave of cupcake popularity by putting her own Asian-American spin on things, and the payoff has been quite a surprise to the Korean-American, Los Angeles, CA native.  To raise awareness of Asian-American culture in Pittsburgh, she began the Cupcakes & Culture Series, the first of which was held in…

Bridgette and Jason Jodon recently underwent the arduous process of becoming foster parents.  Having learned the intricacies of the system, they decided to not only become foster parents (hosting up to two children at once), but also to effect change in the lives of as many children in foster care as possible. Thus, their $1,000…