McCallie Murals April 2014

Recipient: Kevin Bate

Kevin Bate is no stranger to the UNFoundation - his MLK on MLK is one of the coolest and most visible UNFoundation grants to date.  We were super excited to participate in his most recent project - the McCallie Murals. Kevin has engaged Orchard Knob Elementary School, the Chattanooga Girls Leadership Academy, the Highland Park Neighborhood Association, Barger Academy of Fine Arts and the community at large to create a ‘drive-through’ mural experience for the community. Kevin is depicting 4 strong female characters that serve to inspire the community and anyone passing through.

Power Lunch March 2014

Recipient:  Emma Williams

Emma Williams defines the catchy phrase “Just Do It.”  Power Lunch was launched by Emma with a simple vision: to help girls who may not otherwise be exposed to a diversity of career choices plan for bright, ambitious futures by connecting them with successful professional women in our local community.  We love to see an individual go into the community and start making things happen, so when Emma submitted her appy for Power Lunch, we saw a great program making a real difference in the lives of young Chattanoogans and wanted to get involved.  If you’d like to volunteer to speak at a lunch and explain your chosen career path to an enthusiastic group of young women, let us know and we’ll connect you with Emma.

Picnooga February 2014

Recipient: David Moon

Chattanooga just turned 175 years old. Sometimes the future must rely on the past to ebb and flow into its best city self. Enter Picnooga. Picnooga is a digital historic image resource for Chattanooga. Think of it like a digital image library or Wikipedia for Chattanooga, by Chattanoogans. Digital crowdsourcing, if you will. Our grant helped David Moon fund a bunch of needs to propel the digital past movement. We funded research materials like vintage city directories, data storage, website programming, and video/photography project contrasting old and new images of #CHA. Check it out!

Chattanooga Film Festival January 2014

Recipient: Chris Dortch | Chattanooga Film Festival 

Chris Dortch is another example of a repeat grantee who continues to do amazing work in the community.  His most ambitious project to date, CFF, has huge potential to be a flagship event for the Chattanooga community.  For its inaugural year, UNFoundation sponsored the awards ceremony to the tune of $1500.  The grand prize winning feature film took home $1000, while the best short took home $500.  UNF’er Bijan Dhanani was on hand to present the (giant) checks and the festival as a whole was a huge success.