Event
Greater Cincinnati Foundation Is Looking For Big Ideas
Gosh, for so many reasons I am proud to call Cincinnati home. Look around and it is not difficult to find people doing good things, giving back and helping one another, beautifying neighborhoods, and strengthening lives. Diverse cultures joined in workplaces, schools, and gatherings. Together, we make this region thrive.
We have literally hundreds of truly valuable nonprofit organizations whose programs offer hope and enrichment and improve community. They are sustainable only because people – neighbors and friends – care. And for 50 years, the Greater Cincinnati Foundation has been matching charitable donations with causes to bring it all together.
I’d say that is an anniversary worth observing! How neat it is that the GCF is celebrating by inspiring more giving and innovation.
The Big Idea Challenge
In a ground breaking effort, GCF is inviting individuals to come forward with their creative
ideas for creating a more vibrant region for The Big Idea Challenge. Through July 29, you can submit your plan online (at this link) that should fall under one of these seven categories:
Vibrant Places
- Strong Communities: Ensure we have the best places to live by getting more people and organizations involved in comprehensive approaches.
- Cultural Vibrancy: Expand everyone’s connection to the arts, and support the roles of arts and cultural organizations in economic activity in our communities.
- Job Creation: Make more jobs available here by attracting and growing businesses and cultivating a culture of entrepreneurship.
- Environmental Stewardship: Protect our natural environment and promote development of a “green economy.”
Thriving People
- Educational Success: Support children’s learning all along the way from cradle to career.
- Health & Wellness: Pursue healthy lifestyles and create access to health, dental and mental health care.
- Economic Opportunity: Help all individuals and families address their basic needs, get meaningful work, and achieve family financial security.
All submissions are being posted on the Big Idea Challenge web site. After July 29, a panel of community reviewers will narrow down the plans before the ideas are put before the public to vote. In addition to cash prizes for the winners, GCF will find a nonprofit organization to test or implement the seven winning ideas and provide grants to make them happen.
Here are just a few of the great ideas submitted so far:
Piano Mobile – Keys on Wheels
In a retro-fitted van, a keyboard lab will be set-up for 8 students to park and play in neighborhoods across the Greater Cincinnati area. The facilitators aboard each van will instruct students in a 10-week introductory course designed with the beginner in mind. The van will move every 10 weeks to a new neighborhood. Materials and keyboards will be provided to students in daily classes. Minimal tuition could be charged or this could be a scholarship-based program or combination of both.
“I Can” Van
This program is designed to tackle self-esteem issues that continue to hinder the ability of children to build the confidence they need to excel in school & welcome new experiences for lifelong success.
The “I Can” van will partner with local schools and arts organizations to provide approachable, fun and educational programming to be delivered at area parks, community centers and clubs.
What are you waiting for? The time to share your Big Idea is now!
Thanks Greater Cincinnati Foundation for all you do!
Cincinnati Students Learn About Volunteerism In Summer Program
“What I learned about myself this week was that I love people and care about people. It’s a great feeling from helping people and that I’m not too small of a person to make a big difference.”
“What I learned about myself this week was to not judge others and to look deeper than what is on the surface. Everyone has their own stories and is going through various things, so even things like smiling can change someone’s day.”
“What I learned about myself this week was that conversations can serve a larger purpose in breaking down cultural barriers. I can be someone who initiates that conversation in the future.”
These are just some of the many reflections Cincinnati area students have expressed after a week this summer immersed in helping others through the Mayerson High School Service Learning Program. Seventy teens from Mt. Dotre Dame, Moeller, Aiken, Withrow, Reading, Dater and Finneytown High Schools, as well as Starfire University participated.
Through my work with area nonprofits I get to see so many generous acts of young people, and so many incredible programs aimed at instilling in them these powerful character values. I don’t remember having those opportunities when I was a teen and I think it is a beautiful gift. The lessons these students are learning will impact the rest of their lives, and will 
no doubt lead them on a path of lifelong philanthropy.
The Mayerson Foundation’s program is year round and includes high schools from throughout Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati. In the summer urban immersion learning week, students volunteered at 30 area nonprofits and invested $1000 in one of those organizations each week through a grant review process.
Clare Blankemeyer, coordinator for the program, told me there was a strong emphasis on story telling because ‘stories make us human.’ One group interviewed students at the Drop Inn Center. “What the students learned is that many people experiencing homelessness have jobs, are hard working and came upon difficult times,” she said.
Mayerson particpants painted a symbol representing the life and stories of each guest. Those symbols were shared with the Drop Inn guests, and will be incorporated into a greeting card collage that will be sold to offset costs of the Center’s meal program.
Other participants worked alongside Homeless Coalition Streetvibes Distributors and City Gospel Mission’s Exodus Program members to explore their community through photography in the New Voices Program. Some of those pictures will be chosen for a calendar benefitting the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless.
Great work by great people making a great impact. That’s what I call a Good Thing!
Happen, Inc. Art Flash Mobs At Cincinnati Pools This Summer
Children at area Cincinnati Recreation Centers will get an added level of fun this summer, when Happen Inc’s Community Canvases pop at area pools. The canvases will have an image from Cincinnati Art Museum’s Eternal Summer: Edward Henry Potthast exhibition, and children will be asked to join in on some ART FLASH MOB fun and help assemble the canvas right there on the spot on the fence at the pool. Parents you can join in too. Ten canvases will go up during the ten weeks that the Cincinnati Art Museum celebrates the Tenth Anniversary of the Cincinnati Wing . Those ten weeks are called Cincinnati Summer. Ten Cincinnati Recreation Centers are participating.
The first five are:
Millvale: Tuesday June 18th 11 am-1pm. 3303 Beekman Street
Pleasant Ridge: Saturday June 22nd 1pm-3pm. 5915 Ridge.
Winton Hills: Tuesday June 25tth 11am-1pm. 5170 Winneste Ave.
Hanna: Saturday June 29th 1pm- 3pm 226 Stark Street.
Bush: Tuesday July 2nd 11am- 1pm. 2460 Kemper Lane.
Community Canvas is a free Happen, Inc. program that turns an average chain-link fence into a famous work of art, literally bringing art into the community. The canvas begins as a collection of long paper strips, each displaying one section of a famous work of art. Community Canvas is a great way for a school, museum, library, community center, or other organization to bring art into the community. At the opening event, participating children and adults take turns weaving the strips into an empty chain-link fence. When the canvas its up it remains on display for 30 days.
Founded in 1999 Happen, Inc., a nonprofit organization, create a positive environment for parents and children through art-related activities and experiences designed to strengthen both the family structure and the community as a whole. An estimated 7,000 children in Greater Cincinnati each year experience the arts through Happen programs. Happen, Inc recently won the prestigious Cincinnati Post-Corbett Award for Arts Education and Outreach.
Cincinnati Student Competing In National Science Contest
Way to go Alex Kelley, 5th grader at Aldersgate Christian Academy! Rebecca Kelley’s son needs your vote. He is the only Cincinnati student competing in a national science contest for a prize of $10,000 to his school.
How did he get this far? He submitted a 16-page paper on his gravity experiment that tested his hypothesis: that a 
bubble wrap layer would absorb the force of impact of an egg hitting asphalt when used with a parachute.
“The bubble wrap layer will absorb the force of impact when the egg hits the asphalt. The parachute slowed the descent of the egg onto the asphalt. The bubble wrap and the parachute will protect the egg,” he wrote.
Alex listed these REAL LIFE APPLICATIONS for the PHYSICS PRINCIPLES he applied:
- An air bag in a car increases the time it takes a person to potentially fly forward.
- When a sports player wears padding, the person is increasing the time and decreasing the force if someone were to tackle them. The padding absorbs the force.
- Shock absorbers on vehicles keep us from bouncing up and down.
- Shipping with bubble wrap protect the mail.
- Playgrounds now use shredded rubber tires instead of mulch, since it is safer
- A parachutist bending his or her knees reduces shock.
Alex’s video:
To vote for Alex, please click here.
Twitter CEO Dick Costollo Inspires With Commencement Speech
This time of year I get so much inspiration from reading commencement speeches. Words of wisdom shared with graduating seniors are words from which we can all benefit.
Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO, had this advice to share at the University of Michigan
“When you’re doing what you love to do, you become resilient because that is the habit you create for yourself. You create a habit of taking chances on yourself 
and making bold choices in service to doing what you love. If on the other hand, you do what you think is expected of you, or what you are supposed to do, and things go poorly or chaos ensues as it surely will, you will look for external sources for what to do next because that will be the habit you’ve created. You’ll be standing there frozen on the stage of your own life. If you are just filling a role, you will be blindsided…What I implore you to do is that if you make courageous decisions and bet on yourself and put yourself out there, that you will have an impact as a result of what you do and you don’t need to know now what that will be or how it will happen because no one ever does.“
Here is the full speech:
