The Sprout Fund has invested more than $4.1 million in 481 community projects since 2001. Browse the project list to discover more about supported projects, organizations, and inititatives.
Funded Project supported by grant of $7,500 on June 17, 2011
A play about borders, boundaries, and undocumented immigrants in 21st-century Pittsburgh, Camino is the debut performance of Hiawatha Project, an innovative new theater company. Set in an imagined near future infused with GPS maps, lost migrating birds, and star-crossed lovers, Camino is inspired by two young Latino immigrants in Pittsburgh whose lives were torn asunder by the American immigrant deportation system. The play exposes the booming business of private immigrant detention centers in the United States and in doing so, illuminates questions of survival and connectedness. The performance is written and directed by Anya Martin and features an ensemble cast of established and emerging Pittsburgh actors.
Funded Project supported by grant of $10,000 on June 17, 2011
This project endeavors to tell the stories, through photographic images, of how the lives of Pennsylvanians have been and may continue to be affected by the gas Industry brought in by the Marcellus Shale. The project will photographically document the results of drilling, positive and negative, to create a visual representation of the environmental, social, and economic impact of drilling in Pennsylvania. In doing so, the project provides public access to information and increases understanding of the issues, while also providing important historical images for the future. The work will be compiled into a travelling exhibition opening at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts (PCA), with accompanying lectures and a book. The photographs will be archived physically and electronically at PCA.
Funded Project of Fred Rogers Company supported by grant of $10,000 on May 20, 2011
WordPlay from The Fred Rogers Company presents a series of educational posters for advertising windows in bus shelters that provide children and their caregivers with cues for entering into conversations, stories, songs, and other language games as well as call, text, and app-based gaming options.
JAM Sessions from Pitt’s School of Rehabilitation Sciences created five Joystick Adaptive Music (JAM) systems to enable children with special healthcare needs play and compose music. JAM Sessions will be located at the Children’s Institute, the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, Verland Foundation, the Children’s Home, and the Children’s Museum.
Funded Project supported by grant of $2,500 on May 13, 2011
Opening every Saturday morning with the ring of a triangle bell, the Greensboro Farmers Fair and Market celebrates local agriculture and provides family-friendly programming, including live music and children’s art activities. Set in the Greensboro gazebo along the Monongahela River, the weekly event allows participants to stroll along the Nathanael Greene Trail before enjoying a cup of fair trade coffee, fresh baked pastries, and other locally grown foods.
Funded Project supported by grant of $5,000 on May 13, 2011
Friends of Ohiopyle and Ohiopyle State Park offer a new glimpse into the winter season through Snow, Ice and Art. The program includes Winterfest, Winter Summits for students, and a workshop for local teachers that introduces new ways of investigating ice and snow to interpret climate change data. Participants are invited to capture and digitize images of snowflakes; create ice-thin sections and investigate crystals; explore snow pits’ density and temperature; build snow shelters called quinzees; and participate in a winter ecology hike, including a scavenger hunt. The involved educators initially learned these science skills at the History of Winter Workshop provided by NASA in Lake Placid, NY.
Funded Project supported by grant of $5,000 on May 13, 2011
Building Interest in Buildings organizes forward-looking narratives around a plethora of vacant buildings in Brownsville and presents over a thousand recently donated historic photographs of the community. Participants and area residents are invited to complete the sentence “I wish this were…” relative to the vacant buildings that will house a series of exhibits displaying the recently donated photographs. The event will build community members’ exposure to buildings in Brownsville, renovated or not, and invite them to enjoy historic photographs while participating in a simple redevelopment ‘brain-storming’ activity.
Funded Project supported by grant of $1,500 on April 15, 2011
Fossils: Evidence of Queer Life in Pittsburgh is a week-long extravaganza of queer history, storytelling, creating, and dreaming. Participants can unearth and explore Pittsburgh’s GLBTQ past and experience the community’s pivotal role in challenging contemporary social issues. Fossils will spotlight a number of queer artists, performers, activists, and community members and will exhibit “fossils,” visual representations submitted by visitors to document their presence and the existence queer life in Pittsburgh. Part of Future Tenant Gallery’s “Trespass” residency series, “Fossils” will be curated by Pittsburgh-based artist Dani Lamorte.
Funded Project of Flock of Cycles supported by grant of $4,500 on April 15, 2011
Flock Parties are slow paced, family friendly group bicycle rides that focus on having fun while encouraging and exemplifying safe road use. Accompanied by music, groups pedal through easy, pre-planned routes and conclude with post-ride parties at locations that vary each month. Flock Parties bring people together from many different neighborhoods, cultures, and socioeconomic classes with the shared goal of wanting to ride bikes in a safe, supportive, fun environment.
Funded Project of Green & Screen supported by grant of $1,500 on April 15, 2011
An artistic intervention to a citywide problem of vacancy, the project installs a screen along 5416-20 Penn Avenue that covers an empty lot and a vacant building. The screen creates continuity along the avenue and draws attention to art and a community development solution, rather than vacant lots and buildings. When future construction takes place on the lot, the project is able to disassemble and reassemble on other locations. The design project will be painted and assembled by community members, local leaders, artists, designers, university students, and volunteers from Winchester Thurston High School.
Funded Project supported by grant of $5,000 on April 15, 2011
Pittsburgh’s first annual festival of fire arts-and the first of its kind on the East Coast-Pyrotopia presents the diverse artistic uses of fire and celebrates man’s primal fascination with flames. Pyrotopia will entertain and enchant attendees with the use of fire and related media, such as electricity and light in artistic ways. The festival includes fire dancing, spinning, hooping, and swallowing; interactive fire sculptures and games; a gallery show of fire-related and inspired imagery, sculpture, video and other media; workshops and lectures on fire science, history, and safety; and more.
Ready Freddy from the Pitt Office of Child Development is a virtual space where children and their parents can prepare for the start of school by visiting an interactive web-based children’s book that takes children through the process of getting ready for school and shows them what their first day might be like.
MEMote by Aubrey Shick is an open source community-facilitated robot platform for exploring and enacting therapeutic behaviors while educating the public about special needs and technology.
Hello Robo! from Carnegie Science Center introduces robotics in 131 Head Start classrooms in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties and at Family Science Events at the Science Center. During classroom visits, Carnegie Science Center staff educators lead hands on activities to help students build and use simple robotic kits they can then keep and utilize in other lessons throughout the school year.
Digital Discovery Room from Carnegie Museum of Natural History is an online resource for children ages 3 to 8 to supplement their outdoor explorations in and out of school. Children visit the Digital Discovery Room at the Museum or via the internet to explore GIGAPAN photographs of local parks to identify flora, fauna, and geological features they encounter, upload their own digital images and videos from the field and communicate with Museum naturalists to identify organisms and learn more about life in their own backyard.
