Five Brooklyn crowdsource appeals worth your time and money

Congratulations guys, we did it, we saved the Mermaid Parade! Of course, now that know that Brooklyn’s nudest parade is off the chopping block, you might think there’s no need to pay attention to Kickstarter. Au contraire mon frere! While being seen more and more as the province of rich douchebags to lazy to get their own damn funding, or fair borough is home to plenty of creators who could use a little crowdsourced kick to get their dreams off the crowd. So check out these five and considering helping one or all of them out.

THE BALANCING ACT: The House of Yes Documentary

What’s Brokelyn alum Anna Jacobson been up to lately? Oh just filming and directing a documentary about circus company the House of Yes all by herself. If the House of Yes sounds familiar to you, you might be thinking of their absolutely insane-sounding end of the world party that featured Mayan bird god Quetzlcoatl wrestling Santa Claus. Wouldn’t you want to see a documentary on the people who put that together? Anna needs some funds to comb through and edit the 60 hours of footage she shot and to do some sound and color correction. We love Anna, so help her out!

Bed Stuy Fresh and Local

Switching gears, two Bed-Stuy residents are forgoing the whole “being really really rich” thing to start a grocery store, and are asking us to help them buy things like refrigerators, juicers, food cases and other equipment one needs to have a functioning grocery store. The end goal is a store with fresh meat and produce that stocks locally sourced ingredients when they can, hires from within the community while keeping prices affordable enough for any Bed-Stuy resident.

Knickerbocker Manufacturing Corporation

Following in the footsteps of Manufacture NY comes another group of clothing manufacturers who want to bring blue collar jobs back to the good ol’ USA. They’ve got their factory, but if they’re going to make their hats and shirts and bags to specification, they need an embroidery machine and an applique machine. Given that bringing manufacturing jobs back to a place with labor standards is in vogue, this Kickstarter is pretty timely.

nerd. The Series

Frustrated actor? nerd feels you, and they want to put the story of your frustrations on the television for everyone to see. Well not your actual story, because that could make things awkward. Instead they’re going for a mockumentary about the trials and travails of people trying to make it as actors. The nerd part comes in as the friends who make up the case cement their friendship with games of Dungeons and Dragons. And come on, the Community episode about D&D was awesome. The money for this well cover production costs like renting space and getting equipment, plus post-production and editing.

African Diaspora Arts: From Brooklyn to the World Stage

Finally, we’ve got MoCADA. The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts has already made themselves a decent home in Brooklyn. But they’re thinking bigger. They aren’t going to build a bunch of half-baked franchises like the Knitting Factory though. They plan on bringing their exhibitions and programming online. After that, they want to use their website to stream their festivals, artist talks, adult education and archives as well. But of course, web staff and server space is expensive, so give’em a hand, huh?