 So for those of you who don't know, the Rebel Blend Fund is something we created, Alan and I both did one of our own. This is my partner, Brian, near Alan. And we decided years ago, when arts funding was being cut, that it was a small business, we felt that we could do something to make a difference. And so we formed what we call the Rebel Blend Fund, which for any of you who buy our Rebel Blend coffee, thank you. That's how you fund our grant program. We actually donate a dollar of every pound to the Rebel Blend Fund and it is one of our top selling coffees. And so we're able to generate a little bit of money through that fund. But this is the 19th of year that we've given grants for the Rebel Blend Fund. And we're trying to total it off before it goes to $80,000 that we've donated since we started to fund. So thank you to customer service. What's important for people to know is what we were funding. It was the arts, but it was also arts that create social change. Things that we think will make a difference in our community. And our criteria is that the projects must happen here in the state of Maine and benefit all people in the state of Maine. It doesn't mean that the projects can't go in that nationwide or international. If you're interested, we have a list of all of our past recipients. And you can see some people have taken their projects and turned them into amazing, amazing projects. Visual arts, performing arts, incredible performance pieces, photo documentaries. So look at the list. It's pretty extraordinary. I'm really honored today that we have our three recipients of this year. And for those of you who don't know, the way that the Rebel Blend winners are selected is Coffee By Design staff. Al and I have no say in the winners. So when people come up to me when we have the call for proposals and they're trying to present the proposal to me, I let them know you can present, but I have no say. I only get to validate that the applicants are actually qualified to be submitting to the fund. But the committee is actually made up of Coffee By Design staff members. Each store, the roastery and the management team select representatives and they are the ones who actually review all applications, determine who the recipients are and actually confirm the funding that they will receive. So this year there are three winners. And I think that when you hear who this year's recipients are, hopefully, you'll be in agreement that the choices were very timely. So I'm going to shout. Can people hear me still? Yes. I also want to acknowledge not just our winners, but also our partner, which is Andrew Scog and Bank, who are here because part of what we also realize with our winners is obviously the funds are important, and what we're proud about with the winners is critically important also. So our bank partner, Andrew Scog and Bank, is running an ad in main biz, which is critical to getting the word out about who the winners are and actually there are links to these organizations, hopefully encouraging people to learn more about them and hopefully donate more money to them so that their projects can grow even more. But without any further ado, what I'd like to do is announce, what I'm going to do is announce each individual winner. Allow them to speak a couple of minutes about their organization. They will be here afterwards, so please don't hesitate to ask them for more details. But I'd want to invite up first 240 strings. We really have to turn this brief synopsis, and hopefully they'll give a little bit more detail, but this organization is working to bring classical music into low-income household children's lives by providing classical music lessons and instruments. The Rebel Bleddy Fund will pay for three Portland students, one student in each of these areas, piano, violin, and cello. In addition to lessons, students will participate in workshops, work on music and groups with their peers, and be able to attend free chamber music concerts. We look forward to seeing these students perform often within our community, so I'd like to welcome Annie, I'd be the representative who's going to come forward. People actually get their checks today too, so it's very exciting. So let me officially give you your check. If you're coming and I don't know if you want to try the mic, I would not recommend it. I'll try it out. First I want to say a huge thank you to Mary Allen and Allen and everybody else, who I'm sure put in a lot of work from Poppy by Design, and Andrew Stagenbein. It's such a great part of the community. I'm Annie, a Tanakis pianist. These are my colleagues Ben Noyes, who's a cellist, and Tracy Yasasardel, who's a violinist. And together we are the Portland Piano Crio. We are very seasoned performers and teachers, but new to this mission. We founded our nonprofit in May, and our mission is to build community in Portland to subsidize music lessons and chamber music coaching for kids and affordable concerts, free concerts in the area. I think we all have experienced the cultural richness of a city, but it's not always affordable to attend some of the great concerts that go on. So we started with three students, one in each instrument. There's in second to fourth grade. I don't know if you know that about 54%, about a 54% poverty rate in the Portland Public Schools. And so this is something that has been needed for a long time. So we started in October with three students, grants two through four. They're so cute and they're loving it so much and they're just eating up their lessons in their practice time. And so this CBD grant will allow us to double our impact by adding three more students to our incredibly great poll. So please visit our website for more information. I think our next performance together is March 16th. Our next local performance is March 16th. It's a new concert at First Parish Church and also look for a way that we're going to showcase our students towards the end of the academic year. So thank you very much. You know, it's interesting because I should let you know that these winners were selected several weeks ago, but I think that this is very timely. The folks from Luminar. For over three years, the artist rapid response team has been creating banners for progressive nonprofit organizations in Maine for use of demonstrations, press conferences and rallies. Collaborating with 40 plus nonprofit progressive groups, their goal is to promote social change in the state of Maine. Operating under the umbrella of the Union of Maine Visual Artists, Art educates the public by providing rich visuals to present these groups social, economic and environmental justice messages. Now Luminar has been formed to use large-scale video projections to create dynamic experiences that amplify these messages even further. The Rebel Land Funds will enable the group to purchase better software for video projection mapping and Wi-Fi connectivity, build their new projector stand bases, and upgrade their iPad so that they can create more interactive elements at events. By creating live video, and drawing buildings with live art tools, the group can more directly interact with the audience and I haven't been going to be seeing a lot from you all in the next few weeks. Hello, this is Drew. I should also tell you, and again, this was pre-the-election, the committee actually determined to award Luminar more funds than they had requested. So it is a pleasure for me to actually give a check to Luminar. I don't know. So we have Anita Clearfield here to speak on behalf of the organization. Thank you. Hi, I'm Anita Clearfield and thank you to Copy by Design and Andrew Sjager Bank. You're our bank, by the way, in my personal industry, you know. You live in Andrew Sjager's town. Luminar is actually statewide, like art, the artist's rapid response team that has been making over, I think, like 200 banners now for different groups around Maine for progressive causes. And so then we thought we'd blow it up even more and do these, you can't do billboards in Maine, but you could do projections. So we're doing these video projections and we're trying to create whole events where just passers-by will see these things and want to get involved or think a little bit or see something unusual in their community. And what's nice is it's almost like graffiti, but it goes away. We're not going to hurt anything. There's also a way for things to be almost monumentalized. One of our projects was a welcoming immigrants to Maine video that we did in Monument Square. And we could project immigrants and their stories onto the monument so that people could really feel like they were part of this culture and this place. And it was really very moving to see them that big. And as well as doing the welcome to Maine projections, before that we started out by partnering with 350 Maine, 350.org to do a climate change projection that we did on the Mechanics Hall building across from Mecca during the first Friday Art Walk that highlighted the warming of the Gulf of Maine. And we use a lot of humor and things in the projections. There was a polar bear up there and a polar bear down on the ground and they could interact with each other. And it was just a lot of fun. We had a band. So it's the idea of just getting people involved a little bit as well as carrying a banner at a rally. You have something that people can get involved in. Our next project that we're going to do is on December 2nd at the first Friday Art Walk there's a new Equality Maine Community Center for LGBTQ folks to have a warming welcoming place. And that community center will be at 511 Congress where those sculptures are across from Mecca. It's a, well, the design. Yeah, it's a Charlie Hewitt sculpture. It's very cool with the different designs in it. It works well with the center and so the center's back in there and our projection will be up on those buildings and on different shapes. We wanted to give a shout out to Transformit, a company that has allowed us to use their shapes to project onto. And I also wanted to introduce some of my fellow crew because we really do work together quite a bit. This is Jeffrey Layton and Nora Tryon and Richard Tryon and four of the three work together people that work a month. You know, we have about eight or ten people working at any one time on this project. So thank you very much. Make sure we get links because we can promote them. Okay, don't forget to check. Don't forget to check. And last but not least, we have New Fruit. We have several representatives and I'm very pleased to have you all here. For those of you who don't know, New Fruit is a women-run artist collective. They urge a discourse of ideas and risk amongst collective members, artists and audiences to identify as women, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender. Their mission includes providing support, visibility and the means to collaborate the creative process in non-traditional materials and modalities. New Fruit Collective will spark interest in the main scene by creating a space where unrepresentative main artists feel comfortable to take risks and challenges themselves and their audiences. Funding will enable New Fruit to keep creative installation, visual sound performance and non-traditional arts alive in a low cost and no cost barrier for the environment. By supporting the underrepresented artists in Portland providing financially and geographically accessible studio space, they help to continue to help diversify and challenge the main arts community. So I believe it's Kelly who's going to accept on behalf of the group as this trip. So this is Kelly, and if you're laughing for now, for you, she will accept the check on behalf of you. Thank you so much. I'm guilty to a member of New Fruit. Thanks, coffee by the time. Thank you. Thank you so much. New Fruit is an art studio and a collective space. We're located at the base side. Right now our collective is seven members. A few of us are here right now. We host workshops, art shows, different kinds of discussion groups, open studio space for folks who don't have access to more expensive art making studios. Also, thank you so much, coffee by the time, and it's also great to be able to be here today. The money specifically from this grant will help us to kind of start a workshop series and hopefully also a discussion series and kind of like education on direct action. We already have a lot of other things going on, but this will help us be able to actually give money to artists in our community to come in and to encourage that. One thing that is really important to us is that we do encourage a cultural production of people who identify as women, queer, and or trans people. So it's really exciting for us to be encouraged and to help encourage them. Yeah, we also, right now, have an institution that will welcome you all to come see by two artists. And if we talk to them after, we can give you more information about that. We're open every Wednesday to show that installation right now. Definitely take the time to meet with all of these amazing artists here. Go check their sites out. We'll post events. We know the things are going on on our Facebook page. And again, I want to thank everyone here, both the staff and customers of Coffee by Design and the community, because without your interesting Coffee by Design, without your purchase of Rebel Blend, we wouldn't be able to give these grants. And again, thank you to Andrew Stockman Bank for helping us get the word out. Thank you so much, and look forward to seeing you all here next year.