The Brooklyn Brainery was founded three years ago by Soma and Jen, two Brooklynites who wanted to keep learning new things without breaking the bank. The Brainery is a community classroom for New York City offering classes on all kinds of subjects, from knitting to physics. Today, we’re excited to announce that the NYC Awesome Foundation is providing our March $1000 microgrant to help the Brainery develop their new backyard into an awesome outdoor community space!

The Brooklyn Brainery’s approach to educating New York is innovative and fun. Classes run for up to three weeks and are quite inexpensive; anyone can pitch a class they want to teach, and the Brainery handles the logistics. Teachers are passionate amateurs, PhDs, professionals – anyone with a willingness to share what they love with others. Their rule of thumb for classes is “the quirkier the better.” Past classes include electronics, Bengali cuisine, zombie makeup, and lucid dreaming; upcoming ones include proofreading, chess, presentation skills, and the history of the Gowanus Canal.

As the Brainery enters a new phase of growth, our grant will help them build their backyard into a great space to host more free events, and will keep costs down by acting as an extra classroom in the warmer months. We can’t wait to see the new Brainery backyard for ourselves!