Through a competitive grant process (adjudicated by grant review panels of experts in the arts) the Greater Augusta Arts Council has recommended grant awards totaling $150,000 to 11 arts organizations and $50,000 to 17 individual artists to help the arts and cultural sector recover from the pandemic.  The arts organizations will use this funding to save jobs, fund operations, facilities, health and safety supplies, and for marketing and promotional efforts to encourage attendance and participation. The individual artists will use the funds to create new original arts projects, including costs for project-specific materials, stipends to the artist creating the artwork, employees, and for contracted workers for time spent in creating/presenting the proposed artwork.

Arts organizations awardees include Arts and Heritage Center of North Augusta, Augusta Mini Theatre, Inc., Augusta Players, Augusta Symphony, Inc., Augusta Westobou Festival, Inc., Barefoot Productions dba Creative Impressions, Dance Augusta, Inc. dba Colton Ballet Company, Le Chat Noir, South Boundary, Storyland Theatre, Inc., and The Augusta Broadway Singers. 

Individual artist awardees for their artistic projects include Robert Atkins, Nikkar Vinchore Balkon, Kigwana S. Cherry, Andrea Clark, Jonathan Cook, Taylor Johnston Davis, Karen Gordon, David Neches, Jerri Anne Phillips, Aubrey Raiford Pompey, Travis Andrew Shaw, Mark Huie Starling, Rhian Swain, Richard Baruti Tucker, Rudy Volkmann, Drake Allen White, and Symphoni Wiggins.

The Arts Council would like to congratulate all of the grant awardees. The full list with descriptions of recommended awards is available on https://augustaarts.com/our-grants/. 

These grant awards are made possible by a competitive award to the Greater Augusta Arts Council from the National Endowment for the Arts funds from the American Rescue Plan to support the nonprofit arts sector in response to and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our nation’s arts sector has been among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Endowment for the Arts’ American Rescue Plan funding will help arts organizations rebuild and reopen,” said Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson, chair of the NEA. “The arts are crucial to helping America’s communities heal, unite, and inspire as well as essential to our nation’s economic recovery.”