The Santa Barbara County Office of Arts & Culture has announced the 2023 Cultural Arts Grant award recipients.
Funding for the grants comes from the city of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County and the Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation.
The grants are going to 39 nonprofits, and the awarded projects begin this month. For more information, go to sbac.ca.gov/grants.
Grant-funded initiatives include a revived Milpas St. Cinco de Mayo festival, a youth-led gang abatement ceramics program and a traveling Toyota van offering classical music concerts and instruments to schools.
Most of the grant applicants provide free arts services and programs that the Office of Arts & Culture says wouldn’t be possible without additional money.
“Our city grant support will help us to bring back our lost historical Cinco de Mayo tradition and energize the Milpas corridor,” said Jacqueline Inda, founder of the Greater Santa Barbara Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
The grants are administered by the County Office of Arts & Culture through a city-county partnership model that earns additional state funding for the region. The office recently received re-granting funding from the state and will announce new programs in early 2023.
“Local arts and culture organizations put so much time and love into helping local communities to express themselves where they live,” said Sarah York Rubin, the executive director of the Office of Arts & Culture. “This is important and relevant work that the creative sector is uniquely able to perform, and the city of Santa Barbara and county of Santa Barbara recognize arts and culture investment as community investment.”
The city of Santa Barbara invests nearly $300,000 each year into the community through its Arts and Culture Grants. Funding recommendations are determined by the city’s Arts Advisory Committee and Community Events & Festivals Committee.
The three programs — Community Arts, Organizational Development, and Community Events & Festivals — support diverse nonprofits.
This year’s Community Arts Grant recipients are A to Z Cooking School, Hillside House Inc., artist Jana Brody, Lum Zine, Mission Poetry Series, Santa Barbara Art Works, Performing and Visual Art Camp, Santa Barbara Black Culture House, Trust for Historic Preservation and the Santa Barbara Art Association Student Art Fund.
The 2023 recipients for the Community Events and Festivals Grant are the Cinco de Mayo Festival, the Elings Park Foundation, Healing Justice Santa Barbara, Kinetic Cake Experience, the Lobero Theatre Foundation, the Martin Luther King Jr. Committee of Santa Barbara, the Pacific Pride Foundation, Santa Barbara Culinary Experience, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Revels, the Santa Barbara City College Dance Collective and UCSB Arts & Lectures.
Recipients of the Organizational Development Grant consist of American Dance and Music, Flamenco Arts Festival, Center Stage Theater Ensemble Theatre Company, Everybody Dance Now!, Explore Ecology, NewGrit, Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative, the Santa Barbara Gay Men’s Chorus and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
email: dmason@newspress.com
