Maxwell Austin of Glass City Pedicabs was awarded the inaugural Toledo SOUP grant at a community dinner on March 4.

More than 150 people attended the event, where they heard proposals from five finalists and voted Austin’s the winner.

He walked away with $1,047 raised through admissions and donations. Austin said he plans to use about $700 to cover insurance and the rest for extra parts.

Glass City Pedicabs is a bicycle taxi company that provides transportation to the Downtown, Uptown and Warehouse District neighborhoods for games, bars, lunch hours and more. The three-wheeled bikes are nonmotorized, with drivers working for tips. For more information, visit facebook.com/GlassCityPedicabs.

“It’s thrilling. It’s awesome. Words can’t explain how great it was,” Austin said. “Seven hundred bucks doesn’t seem like a lot for some people, but for someone like me who has put every personal dime into this, it’s the difference between me operating or not. Toledo SOUP is awesome. I think it’s one of the greatest things to come to Toledo. The people who grabbed that idea and brought it here are some of the most amazing people Toledo has to offer.”

Toledo SOUP is a microgrant dinner series organizers plan to host quarterly.

The other four finalists were Force Within Community Garden, Glass City Goat Gals, Toledo’s PET Bull Project and arts organization tart::projects.

For more information, visit toledosoup.org.

Tags: community dinners, Glass City Pedicabs, Maxwell Austin, Sarah Ottney, Toledo SOUP

This entry was posted on Monday, March 5th, 2012 at 6:59 pm and is filed under Community, Philanthropy.
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