FY 2021-2022 Supporter Campaign Letter and Annual Summary:
The Warren County Arts Council is celebrating 22 years of arts advocacy in Warren County. Our all-volunteer board has worked hard toward our mission, as we continue to persist amongst pandemic-related challenges. We have made some exciting progress this year, including welcoming 5 new board members! We are now launching our FY 22 Supporter Campaign to raise funds for the FY 2021-2022 year, and we hope that you will consider supporting us starting at the $25/individual level. We also want to share with you some FY 21 highlights of the arts advocacy work we've done, even during a pandemic.
One of our projects from this past year that we are most excited about is the launch of our Artist Registry. Of all the counties in our region, there is not an arts council that keeps a database of artists that is also publicly accessible. We know that growing our outreach and programming is only possible if we know who the artists are in our county and in the greater region. You can visit our Artist Registry on our website at www.warrencountartsnc.org. For an annual contribution of $25 (the same as becoming a Supporter of the Warren County Arts Council), artists can post a brief bio, 4 photos of their work, and any website, social media, and contact info onto the registry. We are looking forward to growing this resource for our community.
The North Carolina Arts Council kicked off its first year of the Artist Support Grant with a new region for Warren, Vance, Franklin, Granville, Halifax, and Northampton counties. We were honored to be asked by the state to serve as the lead arts council in our region for this program, which means we are responsible for administering this grant for artists in all six counties. This program, funded by the N.C. Arts Council, provides the opportunity for a regional consortium of local arts councils to award project grants to artists in their regions. These grants support professional artists in any discipline and at any stage in their careers to pursue projects that further their artistic and professional development. This year the state provided $5,000 in funding; the Warren County Arts Council contributed an extra $1,000 in funding. Other arts councils also matched $600 in funds. We were able to fund 7 artists in our region, with 4 of them being from Warren County!
One of our flagship programs is our participation in the North Carolina Arts Council's Grassroots Program. Each year, the Warren County Arts Council applies for a Grassroots Grant from the state; we turn around and subgrant a majority of the funds to local organizations for arts programming, keeping up to 20% for our own programming and operating costs. The grant requires a dollar-for-dollar match from each organization, including the Warren County Arts Council.
This year in addition to our regular allotment for Warren County, we were able to apply for additional Grassroots funding, making $12,045 available in funding for local organizations and arts programming.
Grassroots funding this year (FY 2020-2021) went to the following organizations:
Lakeland Cultural Arts Center: $7,500 to support operations
Heritage Quilters: $500 to support the virtual program for Quilts, Quilting, and Mathematics
NAACP (SPARK): $1,000 to support the History in Reality (theatrical reenactment) project
Warren County Arts Council: $3,045 to support operations
The total investment in arts programming in Warren County through the Grassroots Grant program for FY 2020-2021 (grant funding + local match) equals $24,090.
We'd like to thank our State of North Carolina legislators, Representative Terry Garrison and Senator Ernestine Bazemore, for continuing to support funding for the arts in North Carolina. We'd also like to thank the Warren County Board of Commissioners for their continued funding of the Arts Council through their non-profit grant cycle; this grant is an important income source to help us make the match requirement for the Grassroots grant.
This year we also contributed $1,100 to sponsor the purchase of a hanging system and pedestals for the display of local and regional artists at Frontier Warren, a joint initiative between the Town of Warrenton and Warren County, located on Main Street in downtown Warrenton. This system will make Frontier Warren one of the Town's only gallery spaces (and one of the few in the county, but we hope that will change in the future!).
Another big step for us this year was in our partnership with Preservation Warrenton, Warren County Schools, and the Town of Warrenton. We have partnered together to begin restoration work on four paintings gifted by Kate Pendleton Arrington to John Graham High School in Warrenton, NC in 1926. Kate Arrington was a Warrenton native and the founding president of the North Carolina Arts Society (which launched the NC Art Museum, the country's first state-funded art museum). These paintings have sustained damage over the years, and have been sitting in the basement of Warren County Schools. However, in the fall of 2020, Preservation Warrenton fully funded the restoration of the first of the four paintings, which is now hanging in the lobby of the newly restored Town of Warrenton Town Hall. The Warren County Arts Council has helped take a lead in the restoration process, will fund the information signage to accompany this piece, and will work toward fundraising for the restoration of the other paintings. You can follow the restoration project on our website at warrencountyartsnc.org.
We hope to continue these same programs in FY 22, as well as bring more arts programming to Warren County, but we need the support of our community to get this done. Your support of the Warren County Arts Council is integral to our sustainability and growth as one of the only arts organizations in Warren County. We are an all-volunteer council that relies on community support, as well as grant funding, to keep our arts programming developing, thriving, and strong
We hope you will consider becoming a 2021-2022 Supporter of the Arts through the Warren County Arts Council starting at the level of $25/individual. Visit our website for more information or email us at warrencountyartscouncil@gmail.com. You can become a Supporter of the Arts by returning a check in the enclosed envelope or making an online contribution via our PayPal account. And if you're an artist, we'll include you on the Registry for FY22 as a part of your contribution- just let us know!