Cultural Council announces grant recipients, seeks input

Just a note from the Belmont Cultural Council’s spokeswoman, Juliet Jenkins about the recipients of this year’s grants and opportunities for the community to provide the Council with some suggestions on future work.

This year’s grants will support a variety of artistic projects and activities in Belmont, including exhibits, festivals, short-term artist residencies and performances in schools. They included the Belmont In Bloom exhibit, done with the Belmont 150 Committee in its exhibit at the Belmont Gallery of Art.  Upcoming this fall, the council is one of the supporters of the One Book, One Belmont programs at the Belmont Public Library.  Here are some others both pending and passed:

  • The Waldorf High School received funds for an after school initiative in Funk Dance, open to the public, date TBA. 
  • The Burbank Elementary School presented An American Journey assembly program, partially funded by Cultural Council funds. 
  • The Powers Music School presented their multi-part Musical Story Hour aimed for pre-schoolers with funding from the Council. 
  • Habitat Education Center presented an exhibit, Inspired by Nature. 
  • The Wellington Elementary School PTO offered the Tanglewood Marionettes for the first graders. 
  • The Belmont Media Center won funds to support a Photographing your Art Workshop. 
  • The Belmont Council on Aging will present a program on Edible Wild Plants by John Root. 
  • The Chenery Middle School ran a Eth-No-Tech Asia Fantasia program with Cultural Council funds. 
  • The Belmont Council on Aging received funds to support purchase of quilting equipment. 
  • The children’s room of the Belmont Public Library will present a Creative Writing program for Children this summer with Council funds.

For those who don’t know the history: Belmont Cultural Council is part of a grass-roots network of 329 local councils that serve every city and town in the state.  The program is the largest most decentralized one of its kind in the United States.  The state legislature provides an annual appropriation to the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which then allocates funds to each local council.  This year, the Belmont Cultural Council distributed $4,800 in grants. Preference was given to Belmont-based non-profit organizations and local artist/humanists for projects that benefit the Belmont community.

As part of its mission to better serve the community, local cultural councils are required to seek community input.  For this purpose, the council has set up a website survey via Monkey Survey.   Please take the survey before July 15th to contribute to our planning process. We seek input from the community personally and informally as well.  Please contact Juliet Jenkins via email BelmontCulturalCouncil (at) yahoo.com with suggestions and/or questions.  The group’s next funding deadline will be in the fall, near mid-October.