2011 OAKLAND INNOVATORS AWARD WINNERS

	OAKLAND ART MURMUR The mission of the Oakland Art Murmur is to increase popular awareness of and participation in the arts of Oakland. Our outreach efforts include a monthly First Friday Gallery Walk, and Saturday Stroll, which includes free public programming such as artists talks, concerts, and tours. oaklandartmurmur.org
	OAKLAND LOCAL Oakland Local is the East Bay's non-profit independent news & community site. We combine original writing, reporting and discussion on issues with a strong commitment to training people of color and in under-served communities to bridge the digital divide through digital story-telling and using social media oaklandlocal.com
	BRETT COOK REFLECTIONS OF HEALING Reflections of Healing is a multi-faceted process of community building that includes the collaborative development of large-scale public works featuring Bay Area residents – who through practice or legacy demonstrate healing. The project culminates with temporary and permanent installation of the works across the city of Oakland brett-cook.com
	AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTE OF MARIN The Grand Lake Farmers Market in Oakland is widely acclaimed as the best farmers market in the East Bay. Making the most of the cozy Splash Pad Park, this market welcomes over 44 local farmers, 30 specialty food purveyors, and a handful of local artisans. agriculturalinstitute.org
	MY YUTE SOCCER My Yute Soccer helps to improve the quality of life in Oakland by providing high quality soccer camps at no cost to families. Not only do children learn about soccer, they learn more about diversity issues within their community myyutesoccer.org
	38th NOTES 38th Notes is an online resource center dedicated to curating Oakland’s amazing canon of urban arts and culture. Through a local lens, 38th Notes reaches an international audience by paying tribute to past innovators and by documenting today’s emerging hip-hop culture with depth and detail 38thnotes.com
	OAKLAND DIGITAL ARTS & LITERACY CENTER ODALC is committed to empowering citizens with digital literacy, professional skills and mentoring services while nurturing community building and volunteerism.  ODALC makes education more relevant and provides participants with the tools they need to be effective 21st-century citizens and productive members of the digital economy odalc.org
	YOUTH RADIO Youth Radio is a youth development organization offering free services to the community with the aim of preparing young people for pathways to meaningful careers. Remix Your life is an exciting new project that explores the creative spaces between traditional case management, therapy, the literary arts, and slam poetry youthradio.org

2010 OAKLAND INNOVATORS AWARD WINNERS

	THE BIKERY The Bikery offers middle school students the opportunity to earn a customized Donk bike they have built themselves. The experience teaches the value of work, the pride of ownership, and the feeling of freedom that comes from riding a bike they made through the neighborhoods they live in. thebikery.weebly.com
	PLANTING JUSTICE Planting Justice creates energy and water-efficient gardens that demonstrate how to grow a complete nutritional diet in our own urban neighborhoods. They lead weekly workshops on food justice, culinary arts, and permaculture design at Mandela High School in Oakland, drawing connections between students' experiences in the garden, relationships to their cultural heritage and family traditions, and current and historical movements for social justice. plantingjustice.org
	DIMOND'S HIDDEN JEWELS MURAL The art students of Sequoia Elementary School will create a 60-foot long mural of the timeline of the Dimond neighborhood from the native Ohlones until today. The mural will then inspire others as it becomes part of the landscape of the Dimond. dimondmural.blogspot.com
	OAKLAND URBAN PATHS Oakland Urban Paths is a group of dedicated walkers, planners, and historians whose common mission is to maintain and celebrate the heritage of Oakland's paths and stairways. These urban paths weave together neighborhoods and are an important piece of our physical and social infrastructure. oaklandurbanpaths.org
	OAKLAND UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL The Oakland Underground Film Festival emphasizes local filmmakers and provides a look at films that entertain, educate, and inspire. In addition to the annual event in September in Jack London Square, the OUFF produces original works and hosts events and presentations throughout the year. oakuff.org
	OAKLAND LEAF Oakland Leaf cultivates community transformation through creative education for youth and families. Oakland Leaf offers culturally relevant school and community-based programs rooted in interweaving five core components that correlate to challenges faced by the community: 1) Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) 2) Literacy, 3) Art and Culture, 4) Health and Wellness, and 5) Leadership and Empowerment. oaklandleaf.org
	CHILDREN'S FAIRYLAND Since 1950, Fairyland has been the place, on the shores of Oakland's Lake Merritt, where children’s literature comes to life with whimsical storybook sets, gentle rides, friendly animals, and wonder-filled puppet shows. A place for kids to be kids, where over 7,500 low-income kids are admitted each year at no charge. fairyland.org
	WALK OAKLAND BIKE OAKLAND WOBO's mission is to improve neighborhood livability and vitality by making Oakland a better place to walk and bike. Their Oaklavía event will open car-free city streets for recreation and community building. Roadways become opportunities for strolling, cycling, roller skating, hula hooping, dancing, board games or just people-watching. walkoaklandbikeoakland.org

2009 OAKLAND INNOVATORS AWARD WINNERS

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. 
facebook.com/Welcome-To-Town-Park 

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 

2009 ARTS-IN-ACTION AWARD WINNER: FAVIANNA RODRIGUEZ
Favianna Rodriguez, artist and entrepreneur, has been working to make art more accessible and participatory in creative ways for many years. Favianna is a printmaker and new media artist who began designing her well-known political posters in the 1990s. Her illustrations portray messages related to community efforts to defend immigrant and women's rights, empower youth, and bring recognition to the effects of war and globalization on communities of color and the poor worldwide. With the Arts-in-Action grant, Favianna will collaborate with the National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights to create "American Dream." This is an interdisciplinary media project focusing on the printed poster and online media tools to create a message around immigrant workers in Oakland. 
http://www.favianna.com 

2008 OAKLAND INNOVATORS AWARD WINNERS

The Oakland Food Connection
Bay Area Video Coalition
Youth Spirit Art Works
People's Grocery
Ella Baker Center

2007 OAKLAND INNOVATORS AWARD WINNERS

On The Bricks
This project is a 6 week re-entry internship program for youth returning from Alameda County Juvenile Hall or California Juvenile Justice Division. The internship's focus will be to educate and support youth (16-24) in their transition, through one on one & group counseling, mentorship, field trips, and job preparedness. Interns receive a stipend for their participation in the program.

Digital Underground Story Telling for Youth
D.U.S.T.Y. is an afterschool program for middle and high school students in Oakland. There are three sites currently: Cole Middle School, Castlemont Community of Small Schools, and Hoover Elementary School. DUSTY students work on computers to create their own Digital Stories, as well at to generate rap and hip hop "beats and rhymes." Throughout the creative process, students learn to master programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, iMovie, and Fruity Loops with the help of skilled instructors. At the end of each semester, the students' creative masterpieces, including digital stories, raps, beats, and performances are showcased in some sort of final event at The Parkway Theatre, The Metro, and other local venues. D.U.S.T.Y. is part of the West Oakland Center for Digital and Multimedia Literacy. The Center combines Internet access and multimedia activities with literacy instruction for West Oakland residents of all ages. It is a joint project developed by the Prescott-Joseph Center for Community Enhancement and the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. 
http://oaklanddusty.org/ 

SpaceShare
SpaceShare develops environmental networking tools that help people connect, travel together, and save resources. Their core focus is carpooling: we look for existing communities that can both support a carpooling system and in turn be strengthened by the connections created. The Innovators Awards Grant will allow SpaceShare to design and implement a carpool system for an East Bay faith community (church, synagogue, or mosque). Our hope is that this grant will fund a pilot ride sharing program that will quickly spread to communities across the country and perhaps beyond. 
http://spaceshare.com 

WAGES: Women's Action To Receive Economic Security
The mission of WAGES is to promote the social and economic empowerment of low-income women through cooperative business ownership. Their unique strategy is to develop eco-friendly housecleaning companies that provide stable, safe and dignified work for their worker-owners while protecting the environment in which we live. With WAGES' assistance, women move out of poverty through cooperative ownership. They make use of the cooperative model to allow women to pool their skills and work together to succeed. A cooperative is a business owned and controlled by those who work in it. Members make decisions democratically by giving each person a vote and distributing income equitably to all workers. 
http://www.wagescooperatives.org 

East Bay Asian Youth Center
Founded in 1976, the East Bay Asian Youth Center (EBAYC) is a private non-profit community-building organization based in the San Antonio neighborhood district of the city of Oakland. EBAYC has a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-lingual membership of over 700 Oakland families who are involved in one of five after-school learning centers, located at Franklin Elementary School, Garfield Elementary School, Manzanita Elementary School, Roosevelt Middle School, and the East Bay Asian Youth Center. EBAYC also has a membership of over 100 families who participate in R.I.S.E., an after-school learning center at Berkeley High School. EBAYC after-school learning centers provide its youth members an integrated array of learning activities, including academic instruction, college & career awareness, health education, sports, outdoor adventures, performing, visual, and media arts, and community service projects. We also provide our high school student members comprehensive internships as reading coaches, sports coaches, social action researchers, and documentary video producers. 
http://www.ebayc.org