The Massachusetts Cultural Council and Lois Pond, chair of the Watertown Cultural Council, have announced the award of 35 grants totaling $16,430, for cultural programs in Watertown. Grant recipients include Edible Watertown, Watertown Arts Market, Watertown Indigenous History Tour, and Live Music at the Watertown Farmers Market.
A complete list of recipients can be seen below.
The Watertown Cultural Council is part of a network of 329 Local Cultural Councils (LCCs) serving all 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth. The LCC Program is the largest grassroots cultural funding network in the nation, supporting thousands of community-based projects in the arts, sciences, and humanities every year.
The state legislature provides an annual appropriation to Mass Cultural Council, a state agency, which then allocates funds to each community. Decisions about which activities to support are made at the community level by a board of municipally appointed volunteers.
The members of the Watertown Cultural Council are: Barbara Epstein, Monica Fairbairn, John Howard Foote, Inés Romero, Nick Haddad, Bredt Handy, Maria Eugenia Mayobre, Phyllis Perrone, Lois Pond, Janice Provencher, Nicollette Reiss, Roberta Rosenberg, Erin Webb, Sally Young.
The Watertown Cultural Council will seek applications again in the fall. For guidelines and complete information on the Watertown Cultural Council website https://www.watertownculturalcouncil.org/
Contact Lois Pond, WCC Chair at 617-686-1825 and lzpond@gmail.com. Applications and more information about the Local Cultural Council Program are available online at www.massculturalcouncil.org. Applications for 2025 are due in October 2024.
This year’s grants are:
$300 The Patrick J. Touhey Memorial Celebration at Canadian American Club
$250 Street Chalk Pop Up with Alex Makes Art
$250 Storybook Movement Workshops with Alive Dance collective at Watertown Free Public Library
$250 Sing Play Grow! Children’s Music Enrichment at Watertown Creative Start
$400 Edible Watertown 2024 exhibits and events
$300 Cunniff School Learning Support Life Skills Café
$600 Call for proposals for mural to commemorate Arshile Gorky along the Watertown-Cambridge Greenway
$300 Hub of the Musiverse 4: The Need for Empathy at First Parish Church
$750 Gore Place Field Trip for Watertown 3rd Graders
$300 Interactive Music Concert for Young Children and Families at WFPL
$250 “Town Crier” 2024 Newsletters, Historical Society of Watertown
$700 Cultural Celebration Week at Hosmer Elementary School
$700 Hosmer School Garden Collaborative Mosaic
$400 SheGrooves; Using Our Voices for Positive Change at Mosesian Center for the Arts
$300 Bilingual Storytelling Fun at Watertown Senior Center
$300 Hip Hop Chair Dance for Seniors at The Residence at Watertown Square and Brigham Manor Nursing Home
$350 Fall Family Cieili—a Community Dance Party at Hibernian Hall
$250 Pioneering Women of Early Rock and Roll at Watertown Senior Center
$750 Geodes and Journals Program at Watertown Boys and Girls Club
$450 Seven Times Salt Concert Series at Church of the Good Shepherd
$250 Women For Peace and Social Justice Women in World Jazz concert at Hosmer School
$500 John Berbarian & Armadi Tsayn in Concert at Mosesian Center for the Arts
$500 The Age of Darkness play at Mosesian Center for the Arts
$300 Nun of This and Nun of That performance at Watertown Senior Center
$800 ArtReach: Mosesian Arts Storytime and Story Explorers Project
$500 Watertown Arts Market
$1,000 Teen Paint Nights at Watertown Boys and Girls Club
$1,000 Youth Film Summer Camp at Watertown Cable Access
$1,000 Watertown Indigenous History Tour
$350 Watertown Pollinator Garden Tour
$350 Storyfest 2024 at Watertown Cooperative Nursery School
$200 YES YOU CAN! Crafts at the Watertown Senior Center
$1,000 Live Music at the Watertown Farmers Market in Saltonstall Park
$700 Beyond our Experience, a free art series for Teens at WFPL
$590 Communities in Common: Literacy and Arts for ESL caregivers and their children at WFPL
Congratulations to the awardees and thanks to the Watertown Cultural Council.