Project M!

I'm very, very excited to announce that I'll be participating in this May's Project M session in Belfast, Maine. For those of you who aren't familiar with the project or didn't receive my fundraising email, here's a brief summary of what it's all about:

It was started in 2003 by designer John Bielenberg. After seeing architect Samuel Mockabee (where the M originally comes from) speak about leading architecture students to work on projects centered around the concept of “design for the greater good”, he was inspired to bring the idea to the graphic design world. Seven years later, he runs multiple 2-week Project M sessions a year, helping young, creative thinkers to see that their work can have a positive and significant impact on the world.

At the beginning of each session, M’ers arrive with no idea what shape their project will take. They work collaboratively to explore the local community to get a sense of how they can use their skills as designers to produce a project that will bring forth positive change in the area.

A few examples of how past Project M sessions have impacted cities and towns around the world:

• Helping to provide safe drinking water to over 100 families in Alabama

• Bringing communities together by turning abandoned lots into parks in Baltimore and Detroit

• Incubating a social-enterprise company, NADA, that produces low-cost bike frames and targets young people to get on bikes and out of cars in urban environments

• Laying the groundwork for an organic garden and local farmer’s market in Connecticut

• Creating awareness and providing a creative outlet for Icelanders during its economic collapse.

I'm so, so excited about this and have been dying to participate forever so I couldn't be happier. The only tricky part is that the project isn't funded by a corporate sponsor but by the individuals who apply so I'm trying to raise $2,000 in the next 3 weeks. If anyone can help in any way it will be sincerely appreciated. I set up a donations page through PayPal, so if you'd like to make a donation you can do so by clicking the donate button at the bottom of this post.

Thanks so much! I will most likely be blogging about the experience too so make sure to check back throughout May.