Arts Council of the Valley awards grants to local artists, arts educators

The Arts Council of the Valley announced the award of Advancing the Arts grants awarded to local artists and educators.

The Explore More Discovery Museum was awarded $750 for “Scraps to Stage: Recycling Yesterday’s Tales and Trash into Today’s Theatre.” This program will support taking first to fifth graders through the process of recycling familiar stories into new dramatic work.

Mary-Liz Humphrey was awarded $780 for “Rhymes and Reason.” It will lead first graders from the Elkton Elementary School to connect rhymes with movement.

Chris Michael was awarded $985 for “Oldenburger.”  Students at Peak View and Lacey Springs Elementary schools will learn about pop artist Claes Oldenburg and work as a team to create a giant paper mache sculpture influenced by his style.

Any Given Child Harrisonburg was awarded $750 for “Scenes About Home.”  This theatre program will help Newcomer Harrisonburg City Public School seventh and eighth graders with limited English share their stories with the wider community.

Ryan Clark Slocum was awarded $500 for Harrisonburg Hip-Hop Exploratory.”  The project will teach Harrisonburg City Public Schools students about the positive aspects of Hip-Hop culture.

Alex Maher was awarded $1000 to help fund MACROCK, an independent music festival that takes place in downtown Harrisonburg.

Arts Council of the Valley’s Advancing the Arts Grant Program supports Harrisonburg and Rockingham artists and educators that work to promote the arts as fundamental to our community and those that advocate for life-long learning in the arts. Since 2002, the Arts Council has provided artists and art educators with over $325,000.

ACV offers two grant application windows per year, October and March, to allow for the funding of grant ideas or needs that arise later in the year. The next grant application deadline is March 11, 2016. There will be a grant information session held onTuesday, February 9 from 5:00-6:00pm at ACV’s Smith House Galleries, located at 311 S. Main Street in downtown Harrisonburg.

Applications and information about the Advancing the Arts grant program are available online at valleyarts.org.