— Image: Letter art from Postal Art Project (Community of Caring 2020 grant cycle) —
Read on about the 14 funded projects from the fall grant cycle. If these projects have you inspired to initiate your own community building idea, apply for a grant in the upcoming cycle!
COMMUNITY POSTPARTUM CARE PROJECT
The Community Newborn Transition Project supports families living in Acadia Park and the Musqueam community with homemade meals following a birth or adoption. Community members can volunteer as "chef families" to provide a homemade meal delivered to the door of families in the community in the first weeks following a newborn addition to the family. This will help to support families in this wonderful but often challenging transition time, while warming hearts and filling tummies with delicious and nutritious food.
To participate: Are you expecting a baby sometime between now and early February 2021? Or would you like to volunteer to be a "chef family" (expenses will be reimbursed)? Please contact info.utown@ubc.ca and we will connect you with Lili, the project leader.
LET'S MASK UP @UBC: A Well-Being initiative
To provide 200+ handmade face masks for kids, adults & seniors, to be distributed to UBC students, staff, faculty and University Neighborhoods Association (UNA) residents at no cost. Preference given to Seniors in the community and the first set of 20 masks will be provided to members of the Musqueam community. This project will help promote wellbeing initiatives amongst the UBC Community, share safety protocols and DIY mask making resources as we approach the holiday season. Learn more.
MYSTERY BOX COOKING CHALLENGE
This fun cooking competition aims to bring the UBC community together during the holiday season. Each of the 30 registrants will receive a mystery food box with the same ingredients and will have to cook creatively and showcase their dishes by the end of the challenge over zoom. This project hopes to share the joy of cooking and eating together with the community, and inspire more cooking at home.
OUR CRIP NOTES | (@ourcripnotes)
This digital zine is created and developed in partnership with Creating Accessible Neighbourhoods BC to spotlight the work of students with a disability across disciplines, and amplify their voices individually and collectively through various creative mediums. Students who have a disability use the different lenses they carry—including their disability—to push thinking, foster imagination, and advance care within relationships within the academy and campus community. Our hope is to spur additional attention, engagement, and support for disability-led content, productions, and projects in the years to come. The digital zine, along with resources, is freely available at ourcripnotes.com.
PLACEMAKING IN A PANDEMIC | (@CAPACity)
CAPACity, UBC's undergraduate urban planning club, is partnering with Women Transforming Cities, ArtLink and the UBC Arts and Culture District on a public space design challenge to reimagine the Flag Pole plaza as an inclusive and COVID-safe space. Participating teams are also invited to a panel event where they can learn from planners, architects, and community leaders and shape their vision of a better campus. The winning team will be supported in the potential implementation of their project on UBC campus.
STEM BOXES
This project will provide children in Acadia Park and the UNA with a light up terrarium kit to build together over zoom. Participants will meet their neighbours while learning about the ecosystem, photosynthesis and the plant life cycle.
SOUTH ASIA ARTS CONNECT
A grassroots initiative organized by graduate students to increase connection amongst UBC's South Asian studies students, South Asian students, and South Asia-focused clubs with the wider South Asian community in the Lower Mainland. We will hold a UBC South Asian Studies graduate students meet-and-greet on January 28th, 2021 and a film screening in late February of 2021. For more information, please contact: south.asia.ubc@gmail.com.
UBC MUSIC INITIATIVE (UMI) MONTHLY EVENTS
These Monthly Events aims to provide a welcome community of musically inclined individuals and a platform for emerging artists. During the COVID-19 pandemic, UBC Music Initiatve holds the vision to bring students together virtually between various community groups at UBC that share common interests and values.
UBC MENTAL HEALTH INITIATIVE
a brand new student-run nonprofit organization that is dedicated to taking action to improve mental health issues within the University of British Columbia and the Greater Vancouver community. We will take action by planning events centered around a different mental health topic each month, host suicide preventing training sessions, and run MHI Anonymous where students can share their experiences anonymously online. Our email is ubcmentalhealthinitiative@gmail.com for anyone who has questions, please feel free to message us!
VIRTUAL BONDING OVER BUBBLE TEA | UBC Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice Undergraduate Association (@GRSJ)
The “Bonding Over Bubble Tea” is the first GRSJ mixer event, hosted online over Zoom, to promote social vibrancy within the GRSJ community despite social distancing. The first 25 people who sign up will be offered free bubble tea in the form of a giftcard. The event will allow GRSJ students to meet each other and take a small break from studying with games and conversation.
WESBROOK WELLBEING PROGRAM
Offered in partnership with the UNA, this workshop based one-to-one peer support program pairs current University Student (“Mentors”) with Senior Level High School Students (“Mentee”), as well as connects the two groups through several workshops with focuses on professional growth, mental wellbeing, and stress-management.
WRITING IN THE TIME OF COVID
This book project will select the best creative non-fiction from around the UBC Vancouver community and publish them as an anthology in the new year called "Writing in the Time of COVID." This project has wrapped and the book is now published with proceeds from book sales going to Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre.