Howard County Arts Council Creates $25,000 artFund for Local Arts Community
The Howard County Arts Council announces the creation of a $25,000 artRELIEF fund to help alleviate the affect the extended recession has had on the local arts community.
Seven Howard County arts organizations will receive artRELIEF grants: Candlelight Concert Society, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, Columbia Center for Theatrical Arts, Columbia Festival of the Arts, Columbia Orchestra, Columbia Pro Cantare, and the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society. The average artRELIEF grant award will be $3,500. Arts organizations that received grants in the operating category of the FY10 Community Arts Development Grant program were eligible for artRELIEF funds.
Arts Council Executive Director Coleen West said, " Nonprofit arts groups are used to operating on a shoe-string budget, but faced with lower ticket sales and a significant decline in contributions from individuals, foundations and corporations their already fragile budgets are at great risk. The Arts Council Board of Directors recognizes the difficulties our local artistic treasures are grappling with and is proud to be able to reallocate funds in order to provide some financial relief this year. In creating this one-time initiative, we hope to inspire others to support the arts in their time of need."
Under the leadership of the Arts Council, the arts have flourished in Howard County. Today, public funding is at an all-time high; local artists have affordable meeting, studio, and performing spaces; and our community enthusiastically supports local artists and arts organizations by attending performances, festivals, exhibitions and special events.
The Arts Council is located at the Howard County Center for the Arts, a 27,000 square foot multi-disciplinary art center in Ellicott City. The Center for the Arts is a barrier-free facility. Both the Arts Council and the Center for the Arts are committed to non-discrimination in the administration of their programs. More information can be found at http://www.hocoarts.org/.
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