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INTRO
Acorn Fund: Yoga Community Toronto's Grants to Support Local Yoga Initiatives. In the inaugural year of Yoga Festival Toronto, participants and friends of the "Acorn Fund" pledged their support for the greater yoga community through their generous donations during the online registration process. The Acorn Fund was formed with a general intention of stimulating and experiencing our yoga community's interest in sharing resources for shared philanthropic concerns.
DONORS
The Acorn Fund relies on its supporters to provide a solid financial foundation for our work in the yoga community. We thank everyone who donated to the Acorn Fund and whose heartwarming acts of faith in our Yoga community and generosity have allowed us to direct the Acorn Fund into a source of Yogic benefit to the general public.
RECIPIENTS
In 2009, New Leaf was the first recipient of an Acorn Fund grant. New Leaf Yoga is a charitable organization that was founded in Toronto in 2007. "We bring yoga, including meditation, to youth who are incarcerated or considered "at risk" in Ontario. The youth we work with face some of life's biggest challenges, including abuse, poverty, addiction, marginalization, crime and very often a lack of family and community support. New Leafsees a bright future in these young people and aspires to help them realize their potential by recognizing the resources they hold within themselves" - Laura Sygrove, co-founder. This grant is being renewed to aidNew Leaf in their project Breaking the Cycle, youth gang-exit and ambassador program in Rexdale.
Our new recipients for 2010 are The Center of Gravity Peacemakers.
The Centre of Gravity is an existing and thriving community of secular yoga & Buddhist practitioners in Toronto led by Michael Stone, whose books, research, and teaching explore the intersection of committed spiritual practice and social action. In 2011 The Center of Gravity is becoming a non-profit learning centre, re-located within an affordable housing operation. The Acorn Fund grant will be used to fund their work with healthcare clinicians, social service frontline workers, and their clients in partnership with St. Clare Multifaith Housing, which started in the 90's as the Toronto Action for Social Change (TASC) working with homeless street youth and evolved into St. Clare's, a successful affordable housing organization serving Parkdale area and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
APPLICANTS
Acorn Fund Grantee Profile: Yoga-educated and experienced applicants who are ready to take their contemplative life-work and self-healing into the context of social activism.
The Acorn Fund places priority on supporting projects that seek to demystify, legitimize, and naturalize yogic practice and thought in the public sphere. Community health, rehabilitation, employment and transition services, public education, continuing-education, youth and children's services, environmental awareness and public space topics, for the elevation of marginalized demographics through an improved quality of life, exemplify possible key areas of focus, however do not feel limited by this list.
In order to ensure fairness and accountability:
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*Applications will only be considered if clear measuring devices (surveys, feedback, testimonials) are included, in order to validate the possible effectiveness of the program contents.
*The proposed project should be a new initiative that the applicant is willing to personally fund to an equal or higher level than the value of the YFT grant. This may include finding other outside sources of funding or investment. The Full Description should describe the ability to manage the requested grant amidst all project resources needed.
*The Acorn Fund will not be granted to already-existing projects that want a financial boost, but will consider new ideas within established programming. The Acorn Fund will not be granted for projects that promote one lineage or studio affiliation over others.
*Grantees will also receive a table at the event to present and promote the funded project, and will be required to give a 20-minute oral presentation at the Festival itself on how their work has unfolded. |
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The Acorn Fund 2010: Positioning yoga within a social justice framework.
The Acorn fund is dedicated to provide an on-going and growing resource that helps to support the creative process of pioneering sustainability steeped in social co-existence.
As "reaping what you sow" implies a communal effort with an equally shared result - the capacity to feed every mouth and even seed another crop - these services are most impressive because they offer the power of intimacy in direct response to the cyclical nature of oppression faced by their clients. It is a great honour to learn about the way these projects have sprouted up and grown, so come with your ears, your voices, and your hearts, to witness the occasion when these activists collect our offering in return for their service.
Starting at 7pm – Centre of Gravity Peacemakers Michael Stone and Ronit Jinich-Weisz, will speak about The Centre's mission to extend the sucessful application of mindfulness precepts and practices beyond the clinical and medical world into the wider community, reducing individual suffering to create a more harmonious and flourishing community.
Starting at 7:45pm – New Leaf's Laura Sygrove, co-founder, and Julia Gibran, teacher, will speak about their experiences over the last three years, and the work at their newest project with partners Breaking the Cycle (a gang-exit initiative in Rexdale). |
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Donate to the Acorn Fund
Application requirements:
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* Personal data and CV
* Yoga education: years, schools, teachers
* Years of personal practice and/or teaching experience
* Most important thing/mindset you have learned from your path so far (500 word essay)
* Cultural/political themes/issues that you would most like to address in your work as a Yoga teacher
* Name of Project, and Tagline of Project
* Brief synopsis with timeline and phases (bullet-point)
* Estimated cost of the project, detailed by hours and materials (budget section of existing business plan if appropriate)
* Full Description: what motivates you toward this project? What prepares you to fulfill it? Goals, expected difficulties, fallback plans, long-term growth projection (1500 words – can include business plan if appropriate)
* 2 professional and 2 personal references |
This year's Acorn Grants Details:
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* Two grants of $1000 are available.
* application deadline: June 31st, 2010
* grants will be awarded within 60 days or less of the application deadline |
Submitting:
Please e-mail the application requirements above to: acorn@yocoto.org.
Type "Acorn Application: [your last name]" in the Subject line.
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