Hive releases grants for kids’ connect learning

Hive Pittsburgh has made its first three grants to programs for tweens to young adults, all aimed at promoting connected learning: the idea that kids learn better when they are genuinely interested in a subject, work with peers and connect with the larger community.

STARTup SOMETHING

STARTup SOMETHING, featured in Kidsburgh, received $10,000 to take participating teens to local tech start-ups, pairing them with mentors and teaching them about entrepreneurship and the perseverance needed to make such companies successful. It’s a project of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Pittsburgh.

STARTup SOMETHING was chosen because it helps with local workforce development efforts, says Ryan Coon, program officer at The Sprout Fund, which administers the Hive, and because it expands the mentor pool for Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Another recipient of $10,000, the Avonworth Pittsburgh Galleries, was chosen because “it put a lot of leadership and management responsibility in the hands of the kids,” he says, “and for the community connections to galleries and museums and other strong cultural assets we have in the city.”

For this project, Avonworth High School kids will manage the art exhibition spaces on their campuses. Curators from the Pittsburgh Glass Center, Carnegie Museum of Art, Toonseum and the Mattress Factory will be the students’ mentors during the school year, helping them create exhibits in tune with the partnering museums. The project will culminate with an art show by participants.

The final grant of $15,000 went to Power Up Homewood, which The Andy Warhol Museum has been running for several years. For its Hive program, Power Up will take 8th and 9th grade Westinghouse High School girls to visit the Greater Pittsburgh Coliseum, a Homewood event venue and cultural center. From there, the kids will explore their neighborhood’s history and current issues and use silk-screening, graphic design, GPS data collection and mapping to form a creative response. The project will be displayed on the Warhol’s website, Trolley Station Oral History Center and Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Art-making and storytelling

Combining art-making with media-savvy storytelling is “a bridge between the hands-on creativity and the more technical creativity, which is something that was really unique about the project,” Coon says.

Sprout will work with Hive grant recipients to connect them with other investors, he adds. “A lot of times what we’re investing in is the people behind it,” he says of Hive and other Sprout projects. “What we like to do is stay involved with those people and help them become leaders in whatever community they are serving.”

Sprout will be documenting each project’s progress and telling their stories on the Hive website. Coon believes these projects, and future Hive grants to be announced as early as next month, “can be replicated elsewhere – not just replicated but revised and made unique for every context.”

Writer: Marty Levine

Source: Ryan Coon, The Sprout Fund