Last night we celebrated our final Awesome Newcastle of the year, this time at a sweet new venue for us, The Young Street Hotel. It was a fab location and vibe in their inviting beer garden. As this was an End- Of-Year Awesome Newcastle, we brought back three our fantastic finalists from the year, and we also brought Awesome friends from times past. We were thrilled to gather to celebrate Awesome Newcastle and its ongoing grassroots dedication to providing no-strings-attached cash for great ideas in the community. This year we welcomed first time guest board member Josh Allen of Moneyme, returning guest board members James McDonald of Newy Tech People, Adrienne Donnelly of Organised by Adrienne, and an Awesome Newcastle original board member, Grant Thomas of Learning Advantage.

Our returning fabulous finalists were Chris Jones of Live Free Project, Martin Sully and Sophie Brenton from Chatterbox and Goya Torres and Astrid Tuohy of Day of the Dead Newcastle.

Marty and Sophie went first explaining how Chatterbox brings local small business owners together for coffee, once a month, each time at a different location. Over the past 12 months they’ve hosted over 300 different local business owners, supported 14 local cafes and purchased close to 400 coffees.
Attendees are asked to purchase a coffee/snack from their host location, but all events are free to attend. Their next event is Thursday, November 23 at Shout Brewing. They told us they would use the Awesome money for marketing and to create website.

Next up was Chris representing the LIVEfree Project who were pitching their Smile and Thrive program. LIVEfree is a nonprofit organisation that works alongside individuals to care for their needs and also connect with their families and support networks to build sustainable change. Smile and Thrive is a program where they take kids who are doing it tough to the dentist to fix any dental issues. They’ve found it’s difficult for children to concentrate when they’ve got a toothache and often they can’t attend an appointment without support. Chris said they would use the money to create packs for kids with dental hygiene items and general support information which they can take home with them. 

Our final finalist of the evening was Astrid, in costume! Astrid presented on behalf of Goya. Goya, Astrid and their friend Luisa are passionate members of the local Mexican community, and they have an upcoming culturally enriching event happening in Hamilton on November 18th called “Dia de los Muertos – Newcastle” (Day of the Dead Newcastle). Guests will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in Mexican culture through food, music, dance, and interactive displays, and Goya will paint a mural on site. They would use the money to help cover venue rental, materials to create the Ofrenda and decorations and also marketing.

As is always the case, the judges had a tough task ahead of them. They discussed and debated with the others and then cast their votes. We invited Grant to the stage to award the money.

Grant announces the grant 🙂

Grant called Chris to the stage and gave her the $1000! Congratulations to Chris and her team from the LIVEfree project. We are so glad to have you back, and your passion and drive is great; we know the money is in good hands. Also congratulations to all our stellar finalists. Thank you for coming back again to pitch. We wish you the best, and maybe we’ll see you soon for a coffee or fiesta!

Thanks again to all our Awesome Newcastle fans and supporters out there. Have a great holiday, and we’ll see ya in February!