Local Grants Awarded for Seekonk Arts and Culture

The Seekonk Cultural Council is pleased to announce the awarding of 13 grants totaling $5715 for arts and cultural programs in Seekonk in 2015.

Grant recipients include Dance of Northern India at the Aitken School, Steve Caddick’s banjo music at Seekonk Meadows in June, and a paper making class at the Library. Other recipients include a high school sculpture class field trip to the DeCordova museum in Lincoln, MA, cartooning for teens at the Library, and writing workshops at the Martin School. A full list of recipients follows.

The Seekonk Cultural Council is part of a network of 329 Local Cultural Councils serving all 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth. The Local Cultural Councils are the most extensive public cultural funding network in the nation. They provide funding to every Massachusetts city and town through the work of more than 2,300 volunteers. The councils support local arts and history, fund school field trips, and sponsor local concerts and exhibitions. Grants to local councils range from $4,300 for the smallest towns to $62,350 for Fall River and $163,080 for Boston, according to a formula that reflects the state's local aid system.

Decisions about which activities to support are made at the community level by a board of municipally appointed volunteers. The members of the Seekonk Cultural Council are: Debbie Block, Bill Clark, Sharon Clarke, Patti Dalton, Alex Dunwoodie, Maria Holme, Martha Torrance, and Charles Waddington. The Council website is: https://www.mass-culture.org/Seekonk.

The Council received 19 requests for funding this year; we received 25 requests last year. Typically, the funds available are $4,000 - $5,000. The Council welcomes individual or corporate donations to increase the funds available for grants.

State Representative Steven Howitt (Seekonk) commented on this year’s grant process: “I am happy to join with the Seekonk Cultural Council in again offering congratulations to this year’s new slate of grantees. As a member of the Joint Committee for Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development, I appreciate all the opportunities I have to engage with and visit many of the arts and cultural organizations in the Commonwealth. Creativity and the arts enrich us all, and we are thankful for organizations such as the Seekonk Cultural Council that works hard in their selection process to determine and select the grant recipients. We thank them for the important work they do and the value they add to our communities. I am pleased and honored to congratulate this year's grantees."

Statewide, more than $2.7 million will be distributed by local cultural councils in 2015. Grants support more than 5,000 activities state-wide: concerts, exhibitions, radio and video productions, field trips for schoolchildren, after-school youth programs, writing workshops, historical preservation efforts, lectures, First Night celebrations, nature and science education programs for families and town festivals. Nearly half of LCC funds support educational activities for young people. This includes the PASS Program, which provides subsidies for school-age children to attend cultural field trips.

The Seekonk Cultural Council will seek applications again in the fall. Information and forms are available online at www.masscultural council.org. Applications are due Oct. 15, 2015.


2015 Grant Recipients

Elizabeth Machado – Cook: DeCordova Museum HS field trip
John Hopkins/MLC Band: Seekonk Meadows concert
Dance of Northern India: Aitken School
Steve Caddick: Banjo music at Seekonk Meadows
Phil Campbell/Noteworthy: Performance at Seekonk Meadows or Senior Center
Henry Lappen/Juggler: Performance at Seekonk Library
John Root/Edible Perennial Gardening and Landscaping: Seekonk Library
Bart Lush/Nudging the Imagination: Writing workshops at Martin School
Pied Potter: Pottery wheel/education at Seekonk Library
Oak Knoll Wildlife Refuge: Paper Making at Seekonk Library
Dee Anne Art: Cartoons for teens at Seekonk Library
Gregory Maichack/Que Sera, Seurat: Pastel painting at Seekonk Library
Matt Gabriel/Wild Heroes: Animal presentation at Seekonk Library