The 2012 10/100/1000 Challenge, a joint project of Creative Loafing and Creative Tampa Bay, drew a wide array of interesting ideas for making our region a better place to live. The following nine projects (listed in alphabetical order) were named finalists. Read about the winner of the $1,000 prize, reachIT.org, here.
INDIE POP-UP BLOCKS
Tampa Independent Business Alliance | Keep St. Petersburg Local
The idea is to transform a seemingly unfriendly city block into a thriving main street filled with local businesses.”
The Tampa Independent Business Alliance and Keep St. Petersburg Local are hoping to energize moribund city blocks with pop-ups — businesses open for a limited amount of time in temporary spaces. The groups plan to stage their pop-up demos during Independents Week June 17-23; potential sites are in St. Pete’s Midtown area and the 1500 block of Franklin in Tampa (already anchored by a destination restaurant, Cafe Hey). The Pop-Up Blocks concept has its roots in the international phenomenon of pop-up shops and restaurants, and in Urban Charrette’s creation last year of a “complete street” in downtown Tampa, during which bike lanes, cafe tables, landscaping, even a bus stop — all temporary — showed how a block of Madison Street could be transformed. Pop-Up Blocks’ prospective retail components include a flower shop and a photo studio. The project will require cooperation from city governments and from owners and landlords, but Urban Charrette’s Taryn Sabia is hopeful that it will “1) get their permission and 2), their blessing and excitement.” tibatampa.com, keepsaintpetersburglocal.org
IN|SITE ART
Artists Advisory Committee
“inSITE ART will rejuvenate blighted downtown Tampa buildings by placing vibrant, professional art installations in their storefront windows.”
It’s happening throughout the country and around the world: Enterprising artists install their creations on a temporary basis in vacant storefronts, at once showcasing neglected real estate and their own artworks. But it hasn’t happened on any scale in Tampa Bay yet, and that’s why the City of Tampa’s Arts Council of Hillsborough County's Artists Advisory Committee — a volunteer group of eight practicing artists from different fields who live in Hillsborough — are raising funds to bring art to locations on N. Franklin and Tampa streets, including the S.H. Kress Building. “We thought we could recreate what so many other cities have done successfully,” says committee member and acclaimed photographer Suzanne Williamson. “Use art as a change agent to revitalize unused spaces and demonstrate how important art and artists are to the process of creating culture.” insiteart.wordpress.com
LAUNDRY LOVE PROJECT
Current of Tampa Bay, Inc.
“Assisting low-income people with meeting a basic need — washing clothes and linens.”
In CL’s 2011 Best of the Bay issue, the editors gave Current of Tampa Bay an award for Best Young Hopefuls, citing the USF-based group and their leader, Jason Sowell, for organizing volunteer projects that “meet specific needs people can’t meet themselves.” With this year’s 10/100/1000 Challenge, CL’s readers got a chance to voice their support, too, their votes making Current’s Laundry Love Project the Readers’ Choice and automatically landing the proposal in the Top 10. But even without the votes, there’s a good chance that Laundry Love would have wound up a finalist. Their proposal said it best: “Imagine the struggle of having to choose between putting food on the table or providing clean clothes. This should not be a choice one should have to make, but unfortunately is the reality that many families wrestle with. … With volunteer support, Laundry Love Projects partner with local laundromats to become places of relief by paying for laundry fees, providing laundry supplies and refreshments, visiting with participants and entertaining their children. $1,000 will provide clean laundry for more than 70 families and fund all necessary laundry supplies — detergent, fabric softener, bleach, laundry bags, coloring books, crayons, bottled water and more.” laundrybycurrent.org
OPEN BOOK EXCHANGE
Bluebird Book Bus
“Give a book, take a book, and share a love of reading with the neighborhood.”
In the few months since Mitzi Gordon launched her Bluebird Book Bus, the bookshop-on-wheels has become a ubiquitous and welcome presence at arts events on both sides of the Bay. Now she’s trying to be even more creative in the way she shares books with people. Picking up on an international movement which has only just recently spread to Florida, she hopes to seed the Tampa Bay area with six Little Free Libraries: birdhouse-like mini-shelters where people can leave books for others to read, or take volumes that interest them. Adapting the design from a template originated by a group of Wisconsin booklovers, she sees the book exchanges as a means of establishing community — and maybe the next step toward transforming her mobile bookstore into a non-profit that, like the Little Free Libraries, makes books available for free. thebluebirdbus.com
SPEC PERFORMANCE SERIES
Spec Performance
“Spec is an extravaganza of live original performance artwork! Every few months, artists from different genres show off their hot new works.”
Last year, writer/director/choreographer Erin Tracy gave a presentation during Pecha Kucha, the unpronounceable but fruitful series during which creative types get 20-minute slots to show slides of work in progress. The experience led her to an epiphany: Why not adapt the format for performing artists? Spec Performance Series will do just that: Artists in theater, dance, live music, film, performance art or any combination thereof will get 7-11 minutes apiece to present highlights of their latest work, followed by a moderated discussion with the audience. With her Spec partner Tina Tidwell, a dance and yoga instructor, Tracy hopes to create “a local sustainable performing art scene through new work development, encouraging artistic risk-taking, building community within different artistic disciplines, and creating meaningful conversation with our audiences.” The first performance is Sat., June 2 at 8 p.m. at The Roosevelt 2.0 in Ybor City and is open to the public. specperformance.org
TAMPA BAY MAKERSPACE
Learning is for Everyone, Inc. (LI4E)
“Like a library but with far more than books, makerspaces provide community residents with the tools, training and resources to become active and empowered creators of their futures instead of passive consumers.”
Learning is for Everyone (LI4E) is a not-for-profit education resource organization dedicated to supporting the “Curiosity Driven Life” through activities ranging from an award-winning community-based robotics team to the Tampa Bay Mini Maker Faire, a gathering of local inventors and self-confessed science geeks. So LI4E President Terri Willingham was naturally drawn to the concept of Makerspaces, a community education movement that originated in Wisconsin. The goal in Tampa, says Willingham, is to locate “a true public community space open to all, with machines and tools and computers, with classrooms and offering workshops and meeting spaces, for everything from robotics to yoga to powder puff mechanics and entrepreneurial learning.” She says the idea has attracted strong interest from the University Area CDC, who believe they have a lead on a building. “But UACDC directors need to be assured that there is support and commitment for the idea.” li4e.org
TAMPA BAT-NITIATIVE
Gene May
“If you hate bugs, mosquitoes or, even worse, pesticides, then the Tampa BAT-nitiative is for you!”
The puns may be irresistible (it’s a batty idea, etc.), but Gene May’s notion of building inexpensive housing for insect-eating bats has a precedent. “My sister lives on a farm in Texas,” he told CL, “and the entire state uses bats and bat-houses.” (His sister has 500 of them.) He was also inspired by a bridge-turned-bat-colony in Austin, where the nightly exodus of an estimated 1.5 million bats has become a tourist attraction. May envisions bat-house building parties, using pre-cut pieces and free house plans to bring the cost per domicile to about $8; each house would hold 100 bats, and each of the bats would eat an estimated 800-1,000 bugs in an evening. His suggestion for an ideal time to hold such events? Just before Halloween, of course.
TAMPA HEIGHTS COMMUNITY GARDEN
Tampa Heights Junior Civic Association
“This entrepreneur garden is 128 sq ft., growing vegetables and skills.”
Opened just last August, the Tampa Heights Community Garden at 605 E. Frances Ave. is living proof of how important a garden can be to a neighborhood’s quality of life. Located in the shadow of I-275 on Department of Transportation-donated property, the garden encompasses family, individual and communal plots; table-height gardens for the disabled (including Wounded Warriors); and a special area for gardeners aged 6-11, who sold so many veggies last fall that they decided to use the funds to expand (after doing a market analysis, of course). The Tampa Bay Garden Club and Metropolitan Ministries are among the garden’s partners, making it not just a source of nutrition but an essential community gathering place. Check out the garden during its Earth Day observance, from 10-3 on Sun., April 22; there may be no better place to celebrate. tampaheightscommunitygarden.org
TEEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP SUMMER CAMP
Future Founders Lab
“A camp where kids learn to grow great solutions to problems… and apply the scientific method to execute a sustainable startup.”
With his Future Founders Lab, Web entrepreneur and educator David Harris wants to “put the cool back in school.” The weeklong camp, launching in the summer of 2013, would teach teenagers everything from the art of the pitch to how to create a business model, from market research to how to attract investors. Mentors from UT and USF business schools, seasoned entrepreneurs, and instructors from Forward Thinking Iniatives will be on hand to guide the students. Harris will target kids from low-performing schools to give them the chance to experience “a full week of creativity, startup empowerment and the deep feeling that they can manifest solutions in our community” — and who knows, maybe create a company before they’ve even graduated high school. futurefounderslab.com
This article appears in Apr 19-25, 2012.