WE ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING GRANT APPLICATIONS FOR THIS PROGRAM

While the Make It Your Own Awards grants were awarded in May 2008, the projects live on. Read more about the Top 100 projects, or see what made the MIYO Awards novel. This site has been archived to serve as a resource for anyone wishing to create a similar project in their community.

Project Summary

Our team hosts 130 online neighborhood forums across metro-Burlington, VT. Our mission is to help neighbors connect and foster community within each neighborhood. After 9 months, 20% of Burlington has joined; 12,000 messages; active! We seek support to reach another 20-50%. FrontPorchForum.com

About me

My wife, Valerie Wood-Lewis, and I, Michael Wood-Lewis, have always been active in community. She is a public school teacher (on leave now) with a Master of Education degree. My career has covered varied ground... inventor, writer, manager, entrepreneur. Most recently, I was the Executive Director of a three-state trade association (25 employees) for five years. We both have been active in various organizations, on boards, etc. She was a "teacher of the year" in Washington, DC prior to our settling in Vermont, and I was honored as Vermont father of the year in 2005. I earned an MBA and MS in engineering. We're working with a wonderful local web developer, Justin Henry, and a technical adviser, Jan Schultz, both of whom are on board with our community-building mission. We already have hundreds of volunteers, local officials, local businesses and others involved in building this. We need more and will continue our already proven approaches and will remain open to new ideas too.