Today, the National Endowment for the Arts announced $50.2 million in new
grants in the second major funding round of this year. The awards will distribute over 63% of the
Endowment's Fiscal Year 2000 grant funds to nonprofit national, regional, state and local organizations
across the country. The Arts Endowment's FY 2000 budget appropriation is $97.6 million with $79.6 million
designated for grantmaking. Since the beginning of FY 2000, the Endowment has awarded over 1,600 grants
totaling more than $73 million.
Grants will be distributed through three of the Endowment's major grant categories: Access will award $4.4
million, Education will award $6.2 million and Heritage & Preservation will award $3.8 million. State
and regional arts agencies, which by Congressional mandate are allocated 40% of the Endowment's grant
funds to broaden access to the arts in all states, will receive $33.3 million in Partnership Agreements. An
additional $2.5 million will fund Leadership Initiatives. Overall, projects reaching national or
multi-state audiences will receive $11.3 million. Grants to organizations must be matched at least dollar for
dollar.
Bill Ivey, Chairman of the Arts Endowment, said These Endowment grants will provide Americans with
increased access to the richness of our country's artistic accomplishments, encourage learning across
generations and preserve our cultural heritage. Through this support, the Endowment will help strengthen the
role of the arts as central to community life and our national identity.
In Access, 208 grants totaling $4.4 million were approved for organizations. Access grants fund a broad
range of arts events for the American public and provide arts experiences in communities where such events
are not readily available. These funds support activities such as artist residencies, after-school and mentoring
programs, performing arts tours, community-based projects, publication distribution and the innovative use of
technology.
Among the Endowment's Access grants is an award to the Houston Grand Opera Association in Houston,
Texas providing free outdoor performances and artist residencies. A consortium project led by the Pinellas
County Arts Council in Clearwater, Florida will place professional artists as resources in eleven juvenile
justice programs. A comprehensive interpretation and education consortium project led by the University
Museum of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks will develop a program around the museum's
permanent collection of Alaskan drawings. The Ordway Music Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota will use
interactive video-conferencing technology to present an electronic field trip for student audiences all over
Minnesota. And residents of rural Connecticut communities will be able to participate in poetry readings and
writing workshops through a project of Curbstone Press in Willimantic, Connecticut.
In Education, 244 grants totaling $6.2 million were approved. Education grants reflect the Endowment's
commitment to the arts as an integral part of education, not only for children and young adults, but for
Americans of all ages, in settings in and outside the formal classroom.
Examples of Education grants include an award to the Education Development Center in Newton,
Massachusetts for research into the effects of arts-integrated curricula on student learning. The Armory
Center for the Arts in Pasadena, California will expand two programs, Project FLARE: Fun with Language,
Arts and Reading, and Children Investigate the Environment. Teachers and students in the Granite School
District in Salt Lake City, Utah will work with Repertory Dance Theater over a 36-week period. At-risk and
underprivileged youth will receive training and paid employment through the Cleveland Public Theatre's
Summer Theatre Enrichment Program (STEP). And high school students in an inner-city neighborhood will
benefit from a year-round visual arts program through Say Sí in San Antonio, Texas.
In Heritage & Preservation, 208 grants totaling $3.8 million were approved. Nationwide, a wealth of
organizations small and large will use Endowment funds to help conserve significant art works, and to honor,
assist and increase the visibility of art and artists celebrating many cultural traditions.
For example: the National Council on Traditional Arts in Silver Spring, Maryland will celebrate the
millennium through a variety of events including urban festivals, a national tour to immigrant communities
and cultural interpretation in National Parks. The Research Foundation of the State University of New
York in Albany will preserve videotaped conversations with significant writers of the last thirty years. The
Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico will conserve the museum's
collection of concha belts and ketohs (wristguards). And the Oregon Festival of American Music in
Eugene, Oregon will present Sidney Becht: A Tribute as a component of the Festival's Le Jazz Hot:
Americans in Paris 1919-1955 program.
The Endowment awarded $2.5 million for Leadership Initiatives. The funds include support for
significant national projects in arts education, city design, dance creation and touring, folk arts, rural
residencies in chamber music and professional development for conductors and play-wrights. Two examples
of projects supported are the NEA/Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's JazzNet initiative, supporting
jazz projects for 12 organizations, and the symposium Going Global: Negotiating the Maze of Cultural
Intersections, presented by the Ohio Arts Foundation in Columbus, Ohio.
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