CT Humanities Relief Grants – Awards Announcement
Connecticut Humanities (CTH) recently awarded a total of $135,000 in operating support grants to nineteen (19) organizations from across the state.
The CT Humanities Relief Grants were made possible with funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to preserve jobs and help support organizations negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of $470,000 in CARES Act funding was made available for re-granting across three application deadlines.
According to Scott Wands, Grants Manager at CTH, while $415,000 in CARES Act funding was awarded across the program’s first two deadlines, and an additional $55,000 in awards made in the final round, “the needs of the state’s humanities museums, historical societies, historic houses, and cultural organizations was so great, that CTH determined it was critical that we also redeploy $80,000 from our other grant lines, funded by the State of Connecticut, to supplement this final round of Relief Grants. All told, we received 169 applications requesting a total of nearly $1.5 million. Through the CARES Act funding and our reallocation of State of Connecticut dollars, we awarded $550,000 in total to seventy-five (75) cultural organizations.”
Samantha Kulish-Fargione, Executive Director at the Weston Historical Society, says, “The CARES Act grant funding will help the Weston Historical Society defray the ongoing cost of utilities and upkeep to our historic site during this dire time. With little money coming in from events and fundraisers, assistance to cover even a portion of our overhead costs is graciously welcomed and desperately needed during this unprecedented time in history.”
“The CARES Act grant will help enable the Colchester Historical Society to withstand the financial loss caused by the closing of the Colchester History Museum and the shuttering of our fund-raising events,” says Gigi Liverant, Colchester Historical Society President. “The funding is essential to the organization’s ability to meet our fiscal obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic,” continues Liverant.
The CARES Act Humanities Relief Grant recipients awarded in this round are:
The Barnum Museum (Bridgeport)
Mary and Eliza Freeman Center for History and Community (Bridgeport)
Chester Historical Society (Chester)
Colchester Historical Society (Colchester)
Historical Society of Glastonbury (Glastonbury)
The Dorothy Whitfield Historic Society (Guilford)
Community Mediation/ Students for Educational Justice (Hamden)
Connecticut Landmarks (Hartford)
Lebanon Historical Society (Lebanon)
Jewish Historical Society of Greater New Haven (New Haven)
New Haven Pride Center (New Haven)
New Haven Museum (New Haven)
Portland Historical Society (Portland)
Friends of Wood Memorial Library (South Windsor)
Stamford Historical Society (Stamford)
Torrington Historical Society (Torrington)
Weston Historical Society (Weston)
NSCDA-CT/ Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum (Wethersfield)
Wilton Historical Society (Wilton)
“CT Humanities continues to look for ways to meet the enormous needs of our state’s cultural institutions,” assures Dr. Jason Mancini, Executive Director at CTH. “We are actively pursuing partnerships with philanthropic organizations and donors looking to provide not only relief funding but to support organizations as they work to find effective and creative ways to engage residents in the humanities during the COVID-19 era and beyond,” he continues.
The humanities are essential as our state grapples with the continued impact of the pandemic, issues of racism, equity and access, and the coming fall elections. “The humanities provide spaces for celebrating cultural heritage, the means for telling and preserving our stories, and the framework for confronting difficult issues through thoughtful dialogue and informed decision making,” says Mancini, “Connecticut cannot afford a mass extinction event in the cultural sector – we need partners to help us prevent that.”
CTH remains grateful to Connecticut’s congressional delegation for their support of the CARES Act, to the National Endowment for the Humanities for its partnership which seeks to have a positive impact on all our communities through grantmaking, and to the State of Connecticut for its continued funding support of the Connecticut Humanities Fund and CTH’s humanities re-granting program.
To see a list of all three rounds of COVID relief grants awarded, visit our grants website.
