Democracy for New Mexico

ABQ Sprout First Inaugural Dinner a Big Success

ABQ Sprout held their First ABQ Micro Grants Award Celebration, Saturday night at the South Valley Multi-Purpose Senior Center. With well over 150 people in attendance, the evening went off without a hitch. Each of the 10 presenters were allowed a half of a table to display their projects prior to the dinner and presentation. Then after going through a cafeteria type dinner line the presenters did their thing while the community gathered ate. Each presenter had 5 minutes to describe their project. Each one was special and unique, all selfless projects benefitting our local community.

ABQ Sprout is a recurring public dinner funding micro-grants for local creative projects that contribute to the Albuquerque community. Staying true to their mission, with a desire to award Micro-Grants to persons or groups striving to make a positive impact in and around the City of Albuquerque, the winners were:

First Place: Share the Harvest, by Kemper Barkhurst and Travis McKenzie

Second Place: Friends of the Orphan Signs, by Lindsey Ellen Fromm

Third Place: Knitting hats and scarves for the homeless, by the South Valley Multi-Purpose Senior Center.

With the help and cooperation of some generous businesses the event was perfect. Dinner was delicious and healthy, and was sponsored by Cafe-Lush. Please see other sponsors on the .

All pitched in together after the presentations to clean the dishes and silverware. We all lined up with our dirty dishes to have a communal dish wash, a fun and cooperative ending to a new and charitable event.

The 10 randomly selected projects out of 25 that were submitted were all well presented, entertaining, heart touching, clever, humorous, and as diversified as the City of Albuquerque itself. 

Sprout was able to gift 3 awards, from the door fees collected, at this Sold Out Event.

The other 7 presenters were:

Public Academy for Performing Arts (PAPA) Film Department
Web of Life Foundation-Stories of Wolves-The Lobo Returns
Bring Carnaval to Abq
Democracy for New Mexico
ABQ Zine Fest
Small Engine
Bridging Our Past, Present, and Future: Rural migration to ABQ post WWII

Let us all get ready and start preparing now for the Next ABQ Sprout Awards Dinner scheduled in May 2012, when the 3 receipients' will prepare a brief acknowledgement of what they did with their Grant. And a new batch of 10 projects will be selected to present, and a community of like minded people will sit down and share a meal, and then do the dishes.  

Let's continue to participate and support this fine developing organization. Fun, creativity, networking, learning, everyone wins!

01/28: DemocracyforNewMexico Randomly Picked to Present at ABQ Sprout Dinner

DemocracyforNewMexico submitted for the ABQ Sprout micro-grant and was randomly chosen to be one of ten local community projects which will present to the first ABQ Sprout Dinner, competing for a micro-grant.

You can watch the random picking of the ten contestants .

is a recurring public dinner funding micro-grants for local creative projects that contribute to the Albuquerque community.

How it works:

• We randomly choose 10 grant proposals from the project submissions.
• These 10 ideas are presented at a community dinner.
• Volunteers prepare dinner.
• Proposals are presented in 5 minute sprouts.
• Everyone receives a ballot and votes on what they believe best fits Albuquerque’s needs.
• Sliding scale fees ($15-30) for dinner provide an immediate micro-grant to the winner.

The Inaugural ABQ Sprout Dinner will be held this Saturday, the 28th, at the South Valley Multipurpose Senior Center on 2008 Larrazolo Rd SW in Albuquerque from 6 to 9pm.

Tickets appear to be going fast. . DemocracyforNewMexico could sure use your support, and supporting this Sprout project with our grassroots base seems to be the perfect natural organic fit.