Kickstarter

Rehabbers! Happy Labor Day!

*Check* it out. A couple of incheresting notes to share.

Spaulding Court has received your funds and they thank you profusely, saying the check couldn't have come at a better time.

Speaking of checks, we encountered a fun and funny situation on the road to getting the money into their hands.

Apparently checks don't have to be written out on regular bank issued checks. As long as a piece of paper has all the appropriate bank account and routing numbers, it should work.

We thought it would be nice and thematic to give Spaulding Court a one square inch check for $2,000. They agreed, and we designed the tiny little micro check you see attached below (blown up here for easy reading).

The bank tellers thought it was hilarious (we all made their day) but weren't sure that they could cash it so we had to use a big boy check to expedite the process. DANG! But YAY because the important thing is they have the money to work with.

Now, something super exciting that's come out of all this that you're all invited to: Spaulding Court has really taken the initiative on new forms of fundraising and is hosting weekly events.

Check out the Soup at Spaulding page on Facebook and become a fan: http://bit.ly/caNqxd . Every Thursday at 7 you can come by for a $5 meal and vote for one of 3 presenting projects to take 1/2 the pool, with Spaulding Court getting the other 1/2. The winning project is then given a chance to double their money on Kickstarter.

So far they've raised some more money for themselves *and* seed funding for things ranging from giant domes for urban agriculture to public art works to food pickling to soil testing. It's amazing.

More people are starting to take notice of their efforts. Check out this brand new Detroit News article and video: http://bit.ly/9VCffW .

We'll keep you periodically updated on their developments and hope you stay engaged. They have a long way to go, but your contributions have been huge not only in the immediate moment, but also in kickstarting more popular attention and expanding their approach to grass roots and internet fundraising. That's remarkable.

Stay inspired, visit Spaulding Court, and thank you again from everyone at LOVELAND and all the friends in the network.

Hello backers! A coupla things real quick:

The New York Times ran a very nice article yesterday mentioning (among other projects in Detroit) LOVELAND and a dinner fundraiser called SOUP (attack of the capitalized names!). Check it out at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/arts/design/04maker.html... .

Jon Koller from Spaulding Court has been inspired by SOUP and is holding a SOUP-y dinner at Spaulding Court tonight. A $5 cover at the door gets you all you can eat, and the money goes to Spaulding Court and a few other projects in the city.

The address for Spaulding Court is 2747 Rosa Parks and Perry in North Corktown. I'm copying Jon's letter below. Hope to see you there, and be sure to spread the word about this Kickstarter so we hit our goal in the next 11 days! ( the short link is http://kck.st/asWqdb )

Jerry
908-343-1981

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Hey folks,

Because we think the SOUP event they have in Mexicantown is so rad, we’re starting up our own right at Spaulding Court. For those that aren’t familiar, SOUP is a monthly dinner that raises money to distribute to a project that the dinner guests select.

It goes like this: people come for dinner—soup, salad and bread—and give $5. At the end of the meal, three folks present projects they’d like to accomplish and the crowd votes for a winner. At the currently running SOUP in Mexicantown, all the proceeds minus the costs of the meal go to the project.

At Spaulding, we’re going to do things a bit differently. We’ll split the proceeds from the dinner between the vote winner and Friends of Spaulding Court. Then, we’ll post a video of the winning presentation on Kickstarter and in one weeks time, try to raise an equal amount to the sum the dinner brought in. If we can get 50 people a week at this dinner, we’ll be able to raise $24,000 over the course of a year to rehabilitate Spaulding Court as well as helping over 50 different projects succeed. You can think of it as multi-tiered crowd-sourcing, building a local economy, dinner entertainment or whatever else!

This will be the first one so it will be a bit crude. If you can help set up or would like to get involved in building the event into the future, give me a call or just come a bit early. If you have a project you’d like to pitch, send me an email. 3 min max presentation, no visual aids, yes for questions.

So here are the details:

—Soup at Spaulding—
Thursday, August 5th (Rain or Shine—we have a canopy)
Eat at 7pm, presentations and vote at 7:30pm
Crushed Lentil Soup from the lovely Hannah
Tasty Salad from Farmer Greg
Local and Delicious Bread
$5, BYOB (bring your own bowl)
Dancing and drinks to follow with the Pink FlaminGO! till 11pm

Feel free to pass this around or bring a friend (or two).

-Jon
313.288.9255