The City of Roanoke has been approved for a $75,000 “Our Town” award from the National Endowment for the ARTS (NEA) to support “Arts Connect Neighborhoods,” a collaborative strategy to engage residents and strengthen neighborhoods through the arts. The City of Roanoke will match the grant with an additional $75, 000. The $150,000 project has been developed through a partnership of the Roanoke Arts Commission and the Roanoke Cultural Endowment.
“The project is the next step in our ongoing efforts to demonstrate the many ways the arts improve our lives and our city,” said Roanoke Arts Commission Chair Meighan L. Sharp. “The timing is important. We’re still regrouping from the pandemic, and our neighborhoods are looking toward the future in a new era. The way we participate has changed and together we’ll explore new ways to bring neighbors together and to foster a strong sends of belonging. We can do something special through the arts. We’re sure of it.”
The collaborative initiative will engage both independent artists and established arts organizations in providing arts-based services and creating meaningful connections in Roanoke neighborhoods. “This project will develop a new resource for our arts organizations and for our neighborhoods,” said Roanoke Cultural Endowment Chair David Wine. “It’s not something we’ve seen somewhere else. We’re creating a model here that builds from one of our City’s great assets – a robust, collaborative, and innovative arts community.”
The project will fund artists and arts organizations to provide fun, engaging, and even educational engagements that residents and neighborhood organizations can use to connect neighbors, strengthen a sense of community, and explore their corners of the city. “We expect to see a broad spectrum of arts activity happening all across the city,” said Wine. “From performances and concerts to workshops, tours, and creative classes, these activities will strengthen ties between neighbors and connect neighborhoods to the art resources around them.”
The award is one of 57 grants nationwide, totaling $4,175,000, that the NEA has approved in the “Our Town” category. These creative place-making grants support projects that integrate arts, culture, and design activities into local efforts to strengthen and authentically engage communities, center equity, advance artful lives, and lay the groundwork for long-term systems change.
“The National Endowment for the Arts is please to support a wide range of projects including Roanoke’s “Arts Connect Neighborhoods,” demonstrating the many ways the arts enrich our lives and contribute to healthy and thriving communities,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, Ph.D. “These organizations play an important role in advancing the creative vitality of our nation and helping to ensure that all people can benefit from arts, culture, and design.”
The arts community will develop an “Arts Connect Neighborhoods” catalog of offerings in the fall of 2023 for free 2024-neighborhood events.
