Ch. 3 Workforce
In 2011, we applied for support through FUEL, a grant offered by Give Back Cincinnati (see workbook for application). The grant required that in 100 words or less, you provide a statement summarizing the project for the requested support.
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If you keep showing up, it can come full circle. Years later, we finally partnered with Give Back Cincinnati (GBC) once I had gotten a foothold on the brewery end of things. So, in 2023, I collaborated in GBC’s “Paint the Town” outreach program and graced dear old Ludlow by painting dilapidated home exteriors.
By now, the brewery pumped out ale at full steam, and we supplied the libations as a sponsor for the program. I even got to balance a keg on my chin for the hundred-plus Give Back Cincinnati corporate volunteers at my alma mater, Covington Catholic. Ironically, in the same gym, I helped paint to earn my tuition through the after-school work-study program from 1989- 1993.
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For more detailed accounts and reflections on these events, please refer to the provided social circus blog link: Vandals & Felons (some of our clients) or Circus as Social Venture = Wealth.
In the fall of 2011, I flew to Berlin to attend the Network of International Circus Educators Conference (NICE). I met Danish clown Einar Trie and Flemish activist Matthias Vermael, the originator of the Bircus concept. Einar would bring a troupe of performers to the USA, generating nearly $40,000 in economic impact. Matthias’s Bircus beer would later inspire my own brewing initiative. Vermael’s prototype involved brewing beer to support Circusplaneet’s conversion of an empty church into a circus space.
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I attended the Dream Doctors conference in Jerusalem in October. I was the guest of Dr. Yoel Donchin, who helped open the doors for the legitimacy of Medical Clowns in Israel. I was able to scrub in and participate in 5 five surgeries as a part of the anesthesia team. Israel has proven that clowns are as effective as midazolam in pre-operative surgery, and parents are given a choice between clowns and gas or a two-drug mix before surgery see workbook for published study.
