Come meet our September presenters!

Fall is here, and we’re getting ready to kick off our fourth season here at SoupGrant! We can’t wait to meet our presenters on Thursday, but before we hear from them, here’s a brief intro to their work in the Lansing community.

Young Entrepreneurs Academy

Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!) is an after-school program whose aim is to transform local high school students into real, confident entrepreneurs. Students generate ideas, conduct research, write plans, and pitch to investors to launch their own companies. If YEA! wins this month’s grant, they’ll put the funds toward student registration fees. For more info on YEA!, check out their website.

Lettuce Live Well

We heard from Lettuce Live Well in June, and they’re back to compete again. Lettuce believes that nutrition education should be free and accessible for all people. They run guided supermarket tours and one-on-on nutrition coaching to make Lansing a healthier city. This month’s grant would help Lettuce fund their grocery store tours and give resources directly back to the community. To learn more about Lettuce Live Well, visit their site here.

We look forward to seeing you this Thursday at 6:30! Don’t forget your bowl and spoon!

It’s Our Birthday!

Three years ago, SoupGrant Lansing opened its doors for the first time. Over the years, we’ve connected countless community members and helped over thirty Lansing organizations reach their goals. This Thursday, we’re celebrating our birthday with a special reunion Soup!

Come out and join us as we welcome back Lansing Track Club, Gateway’s TRUE Project and Helping Women Period. As usual, there will be tons of soup for all tastes – and birthday cake! Bring your friends and family for a great meal and great ideas.

To learn about this month’s presenters, click here.

Meet Our August Presenters!

This month, we’ll be hearing presentations from three of our past favorites: Lansing Track Club, Gateway’s TRUE Project, and Helping Women Period. Here’s a little more information about each of them.

Lansing Track Club

Lansing Area Track Club is a nonprofit that offers sports to families in south Lansing. They aim to reach families with single parents, multiple children, or low incomes, and offer their kids an inexpensive extracurricular that gets them up and moving. If Lansing Track Club wins this month’s grant, they will put the money toward new uniforms, track equipment, and transportation assistance for working parents. For more information, visit the Track Club’s Facebook page.

TRUE

TRUE is an LGBTQ teen support group that meets weekly in Lansing. They provide positive social connections for youth who may feel alienated at school or home. Some current group activities include therapeutic art projects, education about sexual health and other LGBTQ issues, and trips to community events. This month’s grant would help TRUE coordinate group events and continue serving Lansing’s youth. For more information on TRUE, check out their Facebook page here.

Helping Women Period

Helping Women Period is a nonprofit that partners with charities to provide pads and tampons for low income and homeless women. WIC, SNAP, and other government assistance programs do not provide feminine products. Helping Women Period’s mission is to fulfill that basic need for every woman, regardless of income. If they won the August grant, they would use the funds to purchase products for distribution. For more info, visit their website.

Meet our June SoupGrant Presenters!

Lettuce Live Well

Lettuce Live Well is a nonprofit established on the principle that nutrition education should be free for everyone. The organization offers free, 90-minute guided grocery store tours led by nutritional coaches, during which participants are given information on shopping for health and affordability. The founders of Lettuce Live Well hope to foster a healthier community by teaching Lansing residents that eating healthfully can be both easy and wallet-friendly. If they were to win this month’s SoupGrant, Lettuce Live Well would return the funds to their participants. The money would be used to purchase reusable grocery bags, recipe and information booklets, and $10 gift cards to the participating grocery store. To learn more about Lettuce Live Well, visit their website.

Lansing Track Club

The Lansing Area Track club is a nonprofit organization that offers sports to families in south Lansing. Their hope is to reach those who are single parents, have multiple children, or simply cannot afford to allow their children to participate in sports, and make those activities accessible to them. Through participation in the Lansing Track Club, kids learn the importance of team-building and physical activity in a safe, fun environment. If the Lansing Track Club is awarded the June grant, they will put the money toward team uniforms and transportation assistance for working parents. For more information on the Track Club, you can visit their Facebook page here.

Next #SoupGrant June 19

Join us Thursday, June 19 for our next SoupGrant!

As always, we meet at Grace Lutheran ELCA at 6.30 to share a delicious, home-made soup meal, hear ideas from around the Lansing community in our SoupGrant contest, make new friends, and catch up with old ones.

Our soups this week:

• Crushed lentil (Made with chicken stock)
• Veggie minestrone (Vegetarian)
• Sweet parsnip (Vegetarian)
• Shilton (Vegetarian)

Don’t forget to bring along a bowl, a spoon, and your appetite! Presentations begin shortly after 7 and voting takes place around 7.30.

We’ll be featuring Terra and the Food Systems Project which has been helping educate Lansing youth (grades 5-12) since 2005 on raising gardens. The program provides nutrition classes to over 1000 students a year!

We’ll also be hearing an update from past winner, Aliza, and her little free libraries project!

We collect a $5 donation at the door. This money goes to fund our SoupGrant that will be awarded at the end of the night to the community-based project with the most votes. Your donation gets you a vote!

We’re excited to see you! Please let us know if you’ll be coming on our Facebook page. If you would like more info, check out some of the essential info on what we do and what we’re about. If you are interested in presenting a community-based project in our SoupGrant competition, check out past winners who have competed and the application page. We still have room for presenters, but hurry! It’s less than a week away!

This month’s winner will also be eligible to compete in our Birthday Soup in August when SoupGrant celebrates turning 1!

UPDATED 6/19/14

D.A.N.C.E. wins April SoupGrant!

We would like to extend our congratulations to D.A.N.C.E. on winning $85 this past Thursday at SoupGrant!

D.A.N.C.E. is a non-profit committed to improving the lives of kids from 3-18 through the power of performing arts. ChaDorea Robinson, the founder of D.A.N.C.E., recently told us all about their work here in Lansing.

“Our goal is to provide affordable high quality arts training to youth from all socio-economic groups.”

Their S.T.A.R.S. – Students Taking Active Roles in Society – have high expectations held for them by the folks at D.A.N.C.E., but all within a fun, family-like atmosphere.

D.A.N.C.E. has been serving the Lansing community since 2007.

“We have never turned a child down due to the financial status of the family.”

In 2009, organizers recognized the need for pre-professional performance opportunities and S.T.A.R.S. Dance Company (SDC) was born.

D.A.N.C.E. is heavily invested in their participants in more ways than one.

“Besides just training in dance, our S.T.A.R.S. are provided with free academic coaching to help them maximize their academic potential and are encouraged to become active within their community.”

ChaDorea says that she saw a need for this sort of program while she was attending MSU.

“I realized that there were a lot of youth that were very talented and had an interest in performing arts. They always mentioned how they wish they could train in something they loved to do but never had the financial support.

“My passion for performing arts, youth, and my desire to invest in the Lansing community has led me to create D.A.N.C.E.”

D.A.N.C.E. Online

Website – Twitter – Facebook – Coverage in Detroit News

 

SoupGrant Lansing Needs Your Help!

So, we’ve got all these great posters from our logo makeover contest and a whole city to cover.

Can you put up one in your favorite coffee shop? At your bus stop? On your worship community’s bulletin?

Send us an e-mail or leave a comment if you would like a poster! We’ve got plenty to go around so let’s spread the word!

Our next SoupGrant is April 24! See you there!

Congrats to Edgewood Village, and logo redesign winner Kaylee Foster

We had our biggest crowd ever on Thursday night! We filled the basement of Grace Lutheran up to capacity – and apparently the parking lot, too!

(Apologies to the folks trying to attend choir practice – we’ll try to be more conscientious in the future!)

At the last minute, Grammie’s Goodies was forced to drop out of the micro-grant competition because of sickness, but we had another great proposal come forward from Tali at NorthWest Initiative for Global Youth Service Day. Here’s a snippet to give you a small idea of her proposal:

To celebrate the Global Youth Service Day, NorthWest Initiative will be hosting a day of cleanup and beautification for our school and community gardens. We have recruited over 30 youth, ages 12-25, along with some adults, to volunteer their time and efforts into ensuring we have a successful year of gardening! Activities will include weeding, constructing raised beds out of cinderblocks, painting signs, painting cinderblocks, constructing compost bins, and more.

Tali went up against Edgewood Village of East Lansing, a low-income senior housing center, which was asking for money to help take their residents on day trips in the Lansing area to events like Michigan State sporting events.

Edgewood Village came out the winner after the vote and got to take home a grant of $259! We’re looking forward to hearing back from Heather about how the money gets used – and to hear how the residents at Edgewood enjoy their outings around town!

We also had voting on our logo redesign contest! Our 10 finalists went up against one another in the first round of voting with submissions from Spencer DuMond of Holt, Sarah Snyder of Lansing, and Kaylee Foster of East Lansing taking the top three places.

The second round of voting was extremely close; Kaylee pulled off a very narrow victory over Spencer. As the winner, Kaylee took home $150 – about half the money we were able to raise with our Indiegogo campaign!

We’ve said it a few times now, but we are extremely grateful to all of our contestants for submitting, and sharing their work with all of us. We wish each of you the best going forward and hope to have you back at SoupGrant in the future!

Our next SoupGrant is coming up on April 24 – a week later than usual because of Easter and activities already planned at Grace Lutheran Church. Once May rolls around, we’ll be back to meeting on the third Thursday of the month!

March 20 micro-grant contenders

We’ve got a busy month at SoupGrant. Not only will we be voting on a new logo at our March 20 dinner, we’ll also be featuring two contenders to take home a micro-grant to kickstart their respective projects.

In the past, we’ve raised money for “Little Free Libraries” (which will be coming to fruition this spring), the Bath Township Farmers’ Market, vitamins and supplements for low-income Lansing residents, and, last month, we raised $157 for Mid-Mitten Homemade.

This month we have February contestant Grammie’s Goodies returning to the competition.

Grammie’s Goodies is the brainchild of Linette of Perry, MI. Her delicious treats currently feature regularly at the Bath Township Farmers Market every Thursday afternoon and includes 10 different yeast breads as well as some tasty desserts – cakes, cookies, pies, pumpkin rolls, cinnamon rolls, etc.

Grammie’s Goodies would like to expand and so Linette plans to use the money in the following ways:

• purchase pans
• purchase additional mixer bowls and beaters
• start-up cost for a website
• purchase of a banner
• rental cost for a licensed kitchen

Linette has always wanted to have her own business.

“I’ve grown up baking homemade goodies and wish to continue the tradition my grandmas, mom and dad have done for years.

“Should I be able to get my name out there, it is my desire to have my own business within Lansing where people can come, enjoy fresh baked goods, sandwiches made with our breads, coffee and get to know one another and possibly create new jobs.”

We also have Edgewood Village joining us for our second presentation.

Edgewood Village is a senior and low-income housing center in East Lansing. Some of their senior residents have been expressing a desire for activities outside of the Edgewood Village as part of the community’s Senior Life Enrichment Program. Currently, Edgewood is pursuing different opportunities for residents – so far they have secured tickets to sporting events at Michigan State University.

If Edgewood Village wins the micro-grant, they will use the money towards transportation costs to get residents to-and-from events.

According to the folks at Edgewood, “This project is important because it gives mobility to our senior residents and residents with disabilities.  They will be given opportunities to go to places they would not be able to go to on their own.  It also promotes community within Edgewood Village as our residents will be sharing these experiences together.”

As far as being accountable for the funding they would receive, Edgewood tells us, “Our Site Manager will be accountable for the funds  and we will be documenting and photographing the different trips we take our residents.  We will also ask for feedback from our residents on their experiences.”

We are excited to welcome back Grammie’s Goodies and have Edgewood Village join us for the first time. Come on out on the 20th to hear more from both of our presenters!

Voting in the SGL logo contest

Have you enjoyed the submissions to the SGL logo redesign contest?

We can’t say a big enough thank you to all of the talented designers for sharing their artwork with us and sharing our vision for the Lansing community.

Now, at long last, the time has come to pick a winner.

Voting will take place at SoupGrant – as always, the 3^rd Thursday of the month – at Grace Lutheran ELCA at 6.30.

A little info on SoupGrant for the uninitiated…

The night of SoupGrant, two – three people present their community-based ideas to us while we enjoy a delicious soup dinner; after the presentations are through, we vote on our favorite.

We’ve had diverse presentations since we began in the summer of 2013: We’ve raised money for “Little Free Libraries” (which will be coming to fruition this spring), the Bath Township Farmers’ Market, vitamins and supplements for low-income Lansing residents, and, last month, we raised $157 for Mid-Mitten Homemade.

SoupGrant is powered by your donations. Your $5 donation at the door secures you a vote for the community-based project of your choice.

Together, our donations create a micro-grant which is awarded at the end of the night to the project with the most votes!

The money we award will help bring their project one step closer to reality.

Voting on a winner for the #SGL logo makeover

This month we’ll not only vote on a community project, we’ll also vote on our new logo!

If you forget your favorite entry or still haven’t made up your mind, that’s no problem. All 10 will be on display the night of the contest.

Voting will occur over two rounds. In the first round, all 10 of our contestants will compete. Then, our top three entries will go into a deciding round. Whichever comes out with the higher score after the second round will be our winner and take home the $100 prize!

On top of the $100 prize, we’re also adding $50 to the pot for any modifications we might need to request now or in the future, bringing the grand total to $150.

No matter who wins the contest, we know that we’re getting a great design!

Where’s the prize money coming from?

At the same time as we’ve been collecting submissions for our logo makeover, we’ve also had a fundraising campaign going on Indiegogo. We raised $330 to fund the prize money as well as sustain SGL through 2014 as need dictates – printing posters, gas money for volunteers, supplies to make soup, etc. Indiegogo keeps about 10 percent of the money, meaning we ended up with a little under $300.

If you’re on Facebook, please RSVP so that we have a better idea of how many people to expect!

See you on the 20^th!

What? SoupGrant

When? March 20 6.30 – 8.30

Where? Grace Lutheran ELCA on MLK and Saginaw

Cost? $5

BYOB – bring your own bowl! (And spoon.)