There are various ways for Clevelanders to apply for grant money for creative projects, but few are as simple, community-driven or tasty as SOUP, a grant program designed for funding small to medium sized creative projects over a yummy potluck meal.

Cleveland’s inaugural event began with 100 guests packed into the Ohio City home of Marika Shioiri-Clark and her partner and soup co-host, Graham Veysey. “SOUP builds excitement around community. It’s all about talking about great ideas over dinner,” says Shiori-Clark.

The first SOUP event resulted in a $2,000 micro-grant to Rust Belt Riders, a pedal-powered waste removal company that delivers compost to local community gardens.

You’re invited to meet your Cleveland neighbors and pitch an innovative project to the community at SOUP, Vol. 2 on Thursday, November 20th. Pitches can range from fixing a pothole to funding a community art project to building sustainable housing.

Here’s how it works:

Attendees donate $20 (cash please) at the door, meet, mingle and bring a dish to share. Participants can submit proposals for community projects in Cleveland that they would like funded. Shiori-Clark and Veysey will pick about five projects to present at the dinner. Selected projects will have four minutes each to pitch their project during the dinner and four minutes to answer questions from the audience. Attendees vote anonymously during dinner on the project they think will most benefit the community. The entry donations are given directly to the winning project!

Here are the details:

Thursday, November 20th, 6-9pm 
St. John's Episcopal Church parish hall (the building on the left)
2600 Church Street, Ohio City

Please RSVP to clevesoup@gmail.com and include the dish you plan to bring.

If you're interested in pitching a project, please also reply with “Cleveland SOUP Pitch” in the subject line by November 15th. 

Below are four questions to briefly answer in your email if you have a project you'd like funded:

1. What is your project? (try to explain a tangible outcome you would be able to achieve with the money you would receive at SOUP)
2. How does this project benefit the Cleveland community?
3. What is your time frame for the project and how could you report
progress/completion at a future SOUP dinner?
4. How will you use money raised from SOUP?