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Grants Are Fuel For The Arts

ArtsWestchester and Westchester County Government have a long and impressive history together.  Since 1975, they have partnered on a grants process that is equitable and impartial, similar to ones used by both state and federal agencies in which ArtsWestchester convenes outside panels made up of arts professionals to review grant requests. Together, the partners are pleased to announce a first round of $883,420 grants to 66 organizations and six individual artists. A second round of challenge grants will be announced later in the year.

These grants are funded by Westchester County government, administered by ArtsWestchester, and are emblematic of the County’s support of its cultural industry. This year, seven new organizations entered the funding pool, adding new programs to the broad menu of cultural activities that are available to County residents:

Bethany Arts Community in Ossining provides a space in which creatives can work together as a community to foster and nurture new ideas. Its six-week multidisciplinary residency will bring more than 30 artists from a range of disciplines together to engage with the general public through free programming such as workshops and artist talks.

Chappaqua Orchestra’s ensemble of professional-level artists will present two concerts with guest conductors.  One will celebrate the Orchestra’s 60-year history and the other will highlight significant women composers from around the world.

Rehabilitation Through the Arts works with prison communities by using creative arts programming to prepare its inmates with the tools needed for success after their release.  The program for which they were funded is a full-scale performance of the musical 1776 at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. The production will be performed twice for the prison population and once for community guests.

Westchester Collaborative Theater is a theater company that is dedicated to developing and staging new work from the very beginning and through the entire creative process. A play-reading series will present three staged readings of new work, each one developed by a different subset – students, seniors and people of color.

YoFi Annual Film Festival offers independent film screenings, as well as educational workshops and networking events that allow audiences the opportunity to see movies that likely wouldn’t be offered anywhere else.

Career Visions was funded for the My Brother’s Keeper Mural Project, which will produce a series of mural painting workshops for Yonkers boys, from grades K-12, and their fathers. The end goal will be the creation of a mural titled My Brother’s Keeper in outdoor Yonkers.

Yonkers Arts celebrates the plentiful arts offerings throughout the City of Yonkers by creating a network of artists and art groups.  The Carpet Mills Arts Festival (CMAF), for which it was funded, gives a platform to the artists of the YOHO Open Studios during a larger citywide Yonkers Arts Weekend event. CMAF will present outdoor performances, interactive experiences and more.

A version of this article first appeared in the July-August issue of ArtsNews, ArtsWestchester’s monthly publication. ArtsNews is distributed throughout Westchester County. A digital copy is also available at artsw.org/artsnews.

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