The Chatham Arts Council continues its mission to invest in artists and educate kids through the arts with the announcement of this year’s Grassroots Arts Grants.
As the North Carolina Arts Council’s designated county partner, the Chatham Arts Council will distribute the 2015-2016 Grassroots Arts Grants to three local organizations: Child Care Networks, Sisters’ Voices, and The Small Folk Art Museum.
This year’s grants, which total nearly $9,000, are specifically earmarked for local non-profits to pay artists who produce original visual, literary, or performing arts in Chatham County communities in a manner that supports and enhances the missions of the grant recipients.
Child Care Networks’ mission is to provide safe, nurturing care for all children.
As in past years, the agency will use its Grassroots Arts Grant to springboard The Day of the Books (EI Día de los Libros), the children’s festival that promotes literacy in a multi-cultural community. The annual April celebration includes music, storytelling, dance and unique cultural performances in Siler City. Artists lead hands-on art workshops with titles such as a “Build Your Own Musical Instrument” and “Mask and Puppet Making.” Parades and piñatas bridge The Day of the Books with a traditional Latin American holiday, Children’s Day.
Sisters’ Voices is a community-based chorus for girls in grades 2 through 8 
who seek to build self-esteem, instill the importance and rewards of cooperation, and promote choral music. Grassroots Arts Grant funding provides operating support for the organization that features regular rehearsals, concert performances, a travel tour, a summer camp, and a community-building event each year.
The Small Folk Art Museum in Pittsboro will become Chatham County’s first 
art museum. The organization is using its Grassroots Arts Grant funding to hire educators to develop an arts education curriculum tied to its folk art treasury. It also plans to use the funds to secure website designers to develop an online database for its collection of more than 450 art pieces.
Since 2000, the Chatham Arts Council has granted more than $80,000 to other nonprofits using the arts to do extraordinary work in Chatham County through annual Grassroots Arts Grants.
The Grassroots Arts Grant Program is made possible by individual contributions to the Chatham County Arts Council’s general operating fund—and by the Grassroots Arts Program of the N.C. Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Interested in learning more about Grassroots Arts Grants for FY 16/17? Read up on them at this page on our website.
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