Hartford Foundation reaches city youth with arts grants
The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving has announced a total of $360,000 in grants to support arts programs that benefit Hartford youth.
The allocations to 11 arts programs were made in response to the Greater Hartford Arts Landscape Study, a 2019 initiative co-authored by Connecticut Office of the Arts. That study concluded, among other findings, that access to the arts is beneficial to youths but limited in the city.
This allocation is the first round of funding motivated by the study.
“Hartford public schools have amazing things going on, but they don’t have the depth of arts offerings other communities have,” said Jacqueline Coleman, the Foundation’s senior education investments officer. “We found the chance to meet the disparity with out-of-school time access to opportunities.”
Coleman said another finding of the study – a dearth of people of color employed by arts organizations – is another reason to target these organizations in its first round of funding.
“Artists of color are looking for opportunities here, so we tried to promote partnering. For example,
Ebony Horsewomen isn’t an arts organization, but they partnered with two artist organizations,” she said. “We wanted to promote those artists but we can’t fund individual artists. We realized so many independent artists didn’t have an affiliation that allowed us to fund them.”
Coleman said the Foundation hopes to assemble an Artists of Color Advisory Group to advise on efforts for future funding.
ActUp Theater is one of the organizations receiving grants. Faithlyn Johnson, who founded the theater troupe in 2015 with her daughters Tyler and Priestley Johnson, said the $23,483 grant will be used to hire some administrative assistance and to help decrease the cost of registration for participants, “to make ourselves available to the community that we serve.”
ActUp was founded, Johnson said, “to mobilize the power of the arts to create social justice activism in our community, beyond just doing theater productions.
“We also participate in marches, perform at events, do community events for causes,” she said. “We felt the need to create this theater company that really served the inner city, to uplift families in the community.
One of our mottos is ‘Put the community back into community theater.’”
Organizations, their allocations and their projects are:
ActUp, $23,483 for a theater program for youth, their parents and grandparents. actuptheater.org.
Arts for Learning, $33,700 to hold arts workshops at each branch of the city library. aflct.org.
Connecticut Historical Society, $26,500 for a West Indian costume-making summer workshop. chs.org.
Ebony Horsewomen, in collaboration with Sankofa Kuumba and the Joe Young Studios, $75,000 to teach 13 youths how to make a documentary about the North End. ebonyhorsewomen.us.
Hartbeat Ensemble, $58,000 for its Youth Play Institute for city teens, who will receive stipends. hartbeatensemble.org.
Hartford Stage, $42,000 to hold afterschool theater classes at four branches of city library. hartfordstage.org.
United Against Violence, $10,000 to present youth drumming workshops with artist Lance James. muavct.org.
Real Art Ways, $30,317 to create teen storytelling workshops. realartways.org.
Spectrum in Motion at Asylum Hill Congregational Church, $20,000 for a summer dance program. spectruminmotion.org.
Footlights Performing Arts at the YMCA, $21,000 to expand its afterschool arts classes and tutoring. ghymca.org/footlights.
Young Women’s Leadership Corps at the YWCA, $20,000 to expand its offerings to include Latin dance classes. ywcahartford.org/what_we_do/ywlc.html