The first Awesome grant goes to the Grand Rapids Creative Youth Center!

Congratulations to the GR Creative Youth Center on winning GR Awesome Foundation’s first $1k grant. We eagerly await the works you will help to create!

An excerpt from Lori Slager’s submission:

The goal of the CYC is to empower area youth with the growth mindsets and creative capacities necessary to become successful adults. Through one-on-one attention and project-based learning in an inspiring, non-school environment, we will work to help local children find, develop, and share their voices.

We believe that making students published authors gives a tangible credibility to their accomplishments, which creates an empowered sense of self and an enthusiasm for developing their voices and unique communication skills. This will help them to become creative problem solvers and increase their chances of staying committed to education, in turn decreasing drop-out rates and improving positive participation in the classroom.

To move that belief to action, we will publish yearly collections of student work to be sold at local bookstores and other retail outlets.