2009 Oaklandish Innovators Award
Oakland has historically been a hotbed of renegade activity, where boundaries are redefined and trends are created rather than followed. To help encourage the continuation of this "trailblazers' legacy," Oaklandish has created the Oaklandish Innovators Award, a fund that offers annual grants to those organizations and individuals who are doing pioneering work in our community. The total award fund equals $25,000 annually, which we hope will grow with your support! Our winners for 2009 are:
KUNG FU GROCERY
The Kung Fu school Kajunekbo Kwoon was opened in North Oakland in 2006. The Oaklandish Innovators Award grant of $5,000 will help fund the Kung Fu Grocery Summer Camp. The goal of this neighborhood-based project is to give kids ages 6-16 the opportunity to practice Kung Fu and learn practical skills to earn their own money. The program includes Kung Fu workouts and other sports activities, math practice, and cooking healthy snacks to sell at the student-run store. The grant will provide stipends for youth leaders and scholarships for students. Contact sifukate.hobbs@gmail.com for more information.
BAY AREA GIRLS ROCK CAMP
This project, started in 2008, exists to celebrate women and girls' voices and empower more women and girls through music. The Camp includes instrument and voice lessons, self-defense classes, other aspects of music production, and Image and Identity workshops. The Bay Area Girls Rock Camp also plans to implement an instrument lending program and is committed to remaining a long-term fixture in the Oakland Arts Community. The Innovators Award grant of $2,500 will go toward defraying tuition costs for the 2009 summer session.
bayareagirlsrockcamp.org
TOWN PARK
Town Park was created by a group of conscientious Oakland residents who recognized the need to provide Oakland youth with a safe and legal place to skate. Spearheaded by Keith "K-Dub" Williams, their goal is to legitimize the popularity of skateboarding among urban youth by creating a skate park within Oakland, allowing the youth to stay in the community and not be criminalized for skating in public places. In addition to providing free skate access to all skill levels and age groups, Town Park will host special community events, such as the Hood Games, as well as provide skate camps, clinics, professional demos and amateur to professional competitions. The Oaklandish Innovators Award of $5,000 will help fund the "Cabeza Project" in which selected local artists will paint/decorate thirty skateboard helmets for an art exhibition. Afterward, the helmets will be worn in competition at Town Park.
myspace.com/hoodgamestownpark
CYCLES OF CHANGE
This 10-year-old grassroots organization works for social and environmental justice through bicycle, environmental, nutrition education, community gardening programs, and just resource allocation. The Oaklandish Innovators Award will help fund an Earn-A-Bike program at Edna Brewer Middle School Bike Club and a project of creating and selling "bike art" to raise money for an overnight bike/camping trip. The Innovators Award grant of $2,500 will help equip Cycles of Change to give away 40 bikes, helmets, and locks.
cyclesofchange.org
JUST CAUSE OAKLAND
This membership-based community organization has been building a powerful voice for Oakland's low-income tenants and workers since 1999. Just Cause Oakland works to develop leadership skills in Oakland residents to advocate for housing and jobs as human rights, and to mobilize for policies that produce social and economic justice. The Oaklandish Innovators Award grant of $2,500 will help fund Just Cause Oakland's bilingual community newspaper "Just Causes." The purpose of this publication is to bring new people from specific neighborhoods into the grassroots movement for social justice, and provide working-class Oaklanders with updated information about housing issues and other local resources.
justcauseoakland.org
YOUTH SPIRIT ARTWORKS
This is an interfaith youth education and jobs program whose mission is to empower and transform the lives of homeless and low-income youth. The Oaklandish Innovators Award grant of $2,500 will help fund the project "Healthy Bollards, Benches, and Turn-A-Rounds," in which homeless and low-income youth will work with Bay Area artists to create permanent outdoor art benches focused on the theme of health. This is a key historical and social issue that references the health-related outreach done by the Black Panthers in the communities where the art benches will be created. The benches will be exhibited at the Oakland Airport before being put at their permanent sites in North Oakland.
youthspiritartworks.org
SCRAPER BIKES
Founded by Tyrone Stevenson Jr., this grassroots movement seeks to empower youth through the artistic re-creation of bicycles. The Scraper Bike movement gives East Oakland youth a positive outlet that is fun, educational, and promotes healthy lifestyles. The goal is to support youth entrepreneurship and cultural innovation. True to its legacy as an origin of pioneering movements, Oakland is the one and only birthplace of the Scraper Bikes. The Scraper Bike movement could have only been founded in Oakland -- where the everyday and the discarded is rendered beautiful and uplifting through the creative hustle of its citizens.
scraperbikes.net
Read about previous Oaklandish Innovators Award winners...
Representing the strange luster & oddball spirit that is East Bay Life.
It appears that Oakland pride is quite contagious! It's nice to see the proliferation of different Oakland T-shirt designs currently hitting the racks. But as you know, our roots run way deeper than any screen-print could ever convey. The true purpose here is to creatively promote our enduring love for "original Oakland charm" in the face of a constantly mutating culture, population and landscape. When you rock the roots, you evoke all the hidden history & rebel spirit of The Town, in its many incarnations. This way successive generations of young Oaklanders can gain a deeper understanding of the place they call home. Thanks for helping to spread the local love.
