Possibility Potlucks & “What if” Stores
Melanie Kahl

One part neighborhood installations. One part potluck series. All parts community conversation.

Melanie Kahl, when we met with her to give her $1000 back in October 2011

From Melanie Kahl’s Blog:

“Back in the Autumn of 2011, I received a grant from the Awesome Foundation Chicago to do a series of community potlucks and installations to ask with my neighbors “What is awesome about our neighborhood?” and “What is possible in our neighborhood?”

A resident for 2+ years, I have loved to see our little Damen corridor develop. Straddling the divide of the studio and warehouse lined Ravenswood corridor and shop and culture filled Lincoln Square, the area around the Damen brown line stop has managed to carve out a lovely niche of antiques, small gifts, Asian food, and other delightful treats. The faces are friendly, the shops down-to-earth––it is a truly local scene.

However, even so, for the past 16+months, when I walk to the train, I pass a handful of empty storefronts. And I always wonder what they were and what they could be.  After a year and a half of getting to know the neighborhood, its faces, its patterns– I was compelled to do more. I couldn’t open that new neighborhood hotspot, but I could be a neighbor who catalyzed conversation.

This project exists digitally through this blog and www.awesomeleague.org and in various installations in the neighborhood.

Watch this space. Send any questions, comments, and collaboration inquiries to Melanie at  LeagueofAwesomePossibilities@gmail.com.”

Images from the first Possibility Potluck, June 24, 2012.

You can follow Melanie’s Blog here and watch the project develop.

Chicago Awesome Foundation Grant Winner September 2012
Application received: Aug. 11, 2011
Award decision: Sept. 17, 2011
Grant dispersed:  Oct. 4, 2011
First Possibility Potluck dinner: June 24, 2012