Grassroots Arts

2008-2009 Grassroots Grants Program

The Watauga Arts Council has received Grassroots Funding from the North Carolina Legislature through the North Carolina Arts Council for the 2008-2009 fiscal year.  The Watauga Arts Council is the officially Designated County Partner for the distribution of these funds in Watauga County.  Through this program Grassroots Subgrant Awards are made to area organizations who are conducting community programming involving the arts.  There are two funding cycles this year.  Grant awards for the Fall Cycle are listed below.  The deadline for applications for the Spring Cycle is Friday, January 22, 2009. 

Click here for Application Information and Forms .

2008-2009 Grassroots Grant Subgrantee Awards (Fall Cycle):


Organization

Purpose of Grant

Amount Awarded

Downtown Boone Development Association

 Develop marketing and promotional materials for the Downtown Boone Art Crawl using local artists' designs and hiring local performing artists to supplement the Art Crawl activities

 $1,000.00

I Have a Dream Task Force

Presenting multicultural programming in Watauga County Schools during I Have a Dream Week.

 $1,000.00

I Have a Dream Task Force, Unity Festival  2009

To hire artists for the 13th Annual  Unity Festival - which is a multi-cultural all-ages celebration featuring artists and learning centers from a variety of races and cultures.

 $   500.00

Southern Appalachian Historical Association

Hiring a storyteller for the annual Apple Festival which exposes the public to the traditional culture of the High Country

 $1,000.00 

 

The Children's Playhouse

To hire artists and sound assistance for the Playhouse Family Music Festival in Sugar Grove  which showcases local artists and raises awareness for the Children's Playhouse

 $1,000.00

Two Rivers Community School

 

Mary Ann Maier will conduct a four-day residency at Two Rivers Community School serving 150 students with theatre and dramatic arts instruction.

 $   335.00

Click here for 2008-2009 Grant Report Forms.

Grassroots Grants are one of the most effective ways in which the Watauga County Arts Council serves our community.  Our Executive Director, Cherry Johnson, puts it this way:

"When you drop a pebble into a pool of water, little ripples waft out from the center and stretch far away to the outermost parts of the pool. That’s the effect that I feel the Watauga County Arts Council’s Grassroots Grants Program has upon Watauga County. The pebble is the funding sent to us each year via the North Carolina Arts Council from the North Carolina General Assembly.

In 1977, the North Carolina General Assembly established the Grassroots Arts Program to ensure that every citizen had access to quality arts experiences. The program distributes funds for the arts, primarily through local arts councils, to all 100 counties using a per capita based formula. Our legislators have been very supportive in the past few years and, as a result, each year we have been able to fund a lot of great programs and activities (see our listing of Past Grassroots Grants Awards).  Each of them was a wonderful project which we would have loved to conduct ourselves…but there are only so many volunteers, dollars, and hours in a day! By putting seed money into the hands of these worthy organizations, we were able to drop the artistic pebble into the community pool one more time. Have you felt the ripples?"

Past Grassroots Grants Awards