The Essex Chamber Music Players, Winnekenni Castle Foundation, Haverhill Foundation for Excellence and Team Haverhill will split more than half of the total amount awarded to local arts and humanities programs by the Haverhill Cultural Council. The four organizations will share more than $12,000 for music and mural projects.
State Sen. Steven Baddour and Haverhill council Chairman David Zoffoli announced 19 grants totaling $21,709 — representing Haverhill's share of more than $2.65 million distributed statewide — will be given to cultural programs in Haverhill for 2010.
Local recipients are:
The Essex Chamber Music Players, "Notes on Haverhill History" - $3,266
The Winnekenni Castle Foundation, for their Arts and Music series - $3,150
The Haverhill Foundation for Excellence in Education's "Great Wall" project sponsoring large-format student-painted murals in local middle schools - $2,790
Team Haverhill's mural project that will see local residents and groups painting individual squares of canvas that will be "stitched" together and displayed outside Margot's Gallery on Wingate Street for five years - $3,000
Hands on History, for presentations by the 7th Mass Regiment to city elementary and middle schools - $1,225
Haverhill Brightside's "Go Green" event in April, which will include a planting project, an environmental panel, a Green Fair and the Elle Gallo Band at Winnekenni Castle - $750
The YMCA History Mural Project, depicting 150 years of city and YMCA history - $500
The Spotlight Playhouse's production of the Neil Simon play, "Rumors" - $750
Haverhill Farmer's Market, for music at the event - $410
New Moon Coffeehouse, for a traditional music concert and fiddle workshop - $864
Tattersall Farm Day - $900
The Academy of Creative Arts at Trinity Episcopal Church, for musical instruction on instruments and voice, and recitals - $1,353
Earth Rhythms, a program of stories and songs will be performed by Parents' Choice award-winning artists David Bates and Roger Tincknell this summer at Haverhill Public Library - $180
Nearly half of the money distributed by local cultural councils supports educational activities for young people. This includes the PASS Program, which provides subsidies for school-age children to attend cultural field trips. This year, HCC awarded PASS Program funding to:
Hill View Montessori, for 36 students to see a performance of "Barber of Seville" - $291
Hill View Montessori, for students to tour the Museum of Fine Arts - $191
Golden Hill School, for students to see a UMass production of Jigsaw Jones - $738
Girls Inc., for students to visit the Salem Witch Museum in April - $249
Tilton School, for students to see Chris Brown Presents - $340
Pentucket Lake School, for students to see Chris Brown Presents - $762
Local cultural councils receive their money from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, which divides among all 329 local councils a pool of money approved each year by the state Legislature.
Decisions about which activities to support are made at the community level by a board of municipally appointed volunteers. In addition to Zoffoli, the members of the Haverhill council include Susan Blim, Emily Boulger, David Drummond, Marcelle Greenbaum, Ellen Longsworth, Nancy Richardson, Leota Sarette and Dan Speers.
"It's the local volunteers who really make this system work," Baddour said. "They make limited resources go as far as possible, and they make the tough decisions about which projects should be supported. Thanks to them, the arts, sciences and humanities are part of people's everyday lives in every community across the state."
