Our sincere thanks to the trustees of Awesome Kingston who chose to support the Tha’teioneniienawa’khontie: In the Spirit of Cooperation Fund in recognition of National Indigenous Peoples Day in June.

“The Awesome Kingston Trustees are excited to help boost this ‘awesome’ new fund in support of the local Indigenous Community’” said Shari Reed, one of the Trustees who donated to the fund.

If you haven’t heard of Awesome Kingston, you may want to check out their website or follow them on social media @AwesomeKingston.

Essentially, they are a group of people who get together and each month award a $1,000 ‘no-strings-attached’ microgrant to a person or organization to make an awesome idea come true.

Normally this is done at a monthly ‘pitch party’ where finalists take the stage to give a 90-second ‘elevator pitch’ and take questions from the trustees and audience. At the end of the night, the trustees deliberate, and one of the projects walks away with the microgrant. However, with COVID-19 cancelling their in-person pitch parties, they decided they still want to support awesome ideas and in June trustees decided that they would use their funds to support charities that support Black Lives Matter or Indigenous Peoples.

Each trustee contributes their own money – helping to make possible ‘awesome ideas’ in Kingston. Our thanks to all of them for being, well, Awesome, and an extra special thanks to those individuals who chose to direct their gifts to the Foundation this month.