Oregon Community Foundation Awards 560K in Arts Grants

Oregon Community Foundation has awarded $560,000 to support Arts Education. Here's the press release listing the winning organizations: 

For more than two decades, schools have gone through budget cuts that have drastically reduced or eliminated arts education for many Oregon students. In order to help alleviate this deficit, The Oregon Community Foundation has announced a new statewide arts education initiative.

Studio to School is a multi-year grant program to support collaborative projects between schools and community arts organizations to design and deliver sustainable arts education opportunities that have the potential for replication. Through this project, OCF aims to increase arts opportunities for underserved youth in grades K-8 and to support communities in strengthening their ability to offer year-round arts education.

OCF recently awarded a total of $1,260,000 in individual grants of $70,000 each to 18 projects around the state for their first year of Studio to School funding. Each project will receive two more years of funding at $70,000 per year and has the potential to receive $35,000 in funding for years four and five, with a possible total of $280,000 per project.

OCF will also convene all project partners for training, peer exchanges and professional development several times each year. Preference was given to programs that: focus on low-income youth, rural youth or youth of color; include both in-school and out-of-school time programming; and expand on existing local resources and programs.

“We are a foundation that values education - and the arts are a critical component of a complete education. We need solutions for making quality arts education opportunities available for all Oregon’s youth and we believe that our Studio to School partners are part of those solutions,” said OCF President and CEO Max Williams.

The eight Studio to School grants awarded in Metropolitan Portland were to the following organizations:

•        Caldera, Portland; $70,000 to expand the year-round arts-based mentoring and photographic storytelling programs at Peninsula K-8.
•        Columbia Gorge Arts in Education, Hood River; $70,000 to expand the Band Together music and performing arts program to four schools in Hood River County, with a focus on involving Latino and low-income students.
•        Ethos, Inc., Portland; $70,000 to expand partnership with the rural community of Elkton to increase music education offerings to youth grades K-8.
•        Film Action Oregon, Portland; $70,000 to partner with Open Meadow Middle School to create a school-based media studio for use by students and for training educators in integrating arts curricula throughout the school day.
•        Oregon Symphony Association, Portland; $70,000 to expand and deepen music instruction as well as mentor classroom teachers in arts integration at Gilbert Heights Elementary and Alice Ott Middle School in the David Douglas School District.
•        Pacific Crest Sinfonietta, Portland; $70,000 to establish a music education program at King School focused on jazz instruction and performance.
•        Portland Children's Museum, Portland; $70,000, for a partnership with Woodlawn PK-8, providing experienced teacher-artists to work with educators to increase arts integration into classrooms and after-school activities.
•        Regional Arts & Culture Council, Portland; $70,000 to bring the Right Brain Initiative to Evergreen Middle and Eastwood and Quatama Elementary Schools and to create a district wide learning community in Hillsboro.

OCF also awarded more than $2 million in grants to nonprofits in the Portland Metropolitan area during the recent spring grant cycle and more than $11.7 million statewide.

Additional grants in the region included:

•        All Hands Raised, Portland; $25,000 for a third and final year of potential support to manage and sustain the Cradle to Career partnership, designed to connect systems serving children from prenatal care through young adulthood, so that by age 25 they are self-sufficient and earning a living.
•        Bicycle Transportation Alliance, Portland; $15,000 for the Healthy Neighborhood Streets program, engaging underrepresented communities in East Portland and Gresham in providing input on transportation policies and infrastructure.
•        Center for Geography Education in Oregon, Portland; $200,000 to improve geography education in Oregon's K-12 schools through professional development, materials development, community outreach and advocacy.
•        The Children's Institute, Portland; $30,000 for a third and final year of support for Early Works, a community-based initiative to demonstrate the effectiveness of aligning and integrating early childhood education with elementary school education.
•        Farmers Conservation Alliance, Hood River; $19,000 for outreach to increase distribution of fish screens for irrigation ditches, to save fish and to help farmers meet federal requirements via a low-cost, low-maintenance technology.
•        Los Niño’s Cuentan, Inc., Clackamas; $25,000 to consolidate case management and self-sufficiency programs at Casa Hogar, a women's shelter for Latinas who are victims of domestic violence or affected by drug addiction.

For a full list of grants, visit www.oregoncf.org. More information about the Studio to School program can be found at http://www.oregoncf.org/grants-scholarships/grants/ocf-funds/studio-to-school.