In its third year of providing significant support to the arts, The Rhode Island Foundation awarded $1,360,499 for cultural projects and organizations in 2002, including 34 grants totaling $887,500 approved in December to increase arts in education programs, build community through the arts, stabilize arts organizations, and support new artistic works being created and presented in Rhode Island.

At the same meeting, the Foundation announced 15 grants for education projects totaling $422,250, bringing education support in 2002 to $1,607,149.

An additional 84 smaller grants, distributed across the Foundation’s four issue areas of children and families, arts, education, and economic development, were approved for a total of $324,377.

ARTS GRANTS

Arts in Education
With the goal of bringing together community arts organizations, schools, and artists to help establish the arts as a central part of schooling and life for all children, three grants totaling $129,000 were awarded to the following:

• Education Development Center’s SmART Schools Rhode Island, $79,000, for third year funding for this program that advocates comprehensive school change in and through the arts, allowing it to expand to two Warwick elementary schools, Oakland Beach and John Green.
• AS220’s Broad Street Studio, Providence, $25,000, for third year funding of this transitional arts education program for current and former residents of the Rhode Island Training School and other at-risk youth. The program includes workshops and training to introduce young males to the arts as a career opportunity.
• Ocean State Chamber Orchestra’s African-American Composers Project, $25,000, as a one-to-one challenge grant, for promoting the music and lives of African-American composers through a multi-media recording and film project that will be made available to schools and community organizations throughout Rhode Island.

Community and Public Art
Four projects totaling $140,000 were funded to bring the public into direct contact with artists and art, at no charge to the public:

• International Gallery-Heritage & Culture, $75,000, for third year funding of the Building Communities through the Arts program that enables AmeriCorps artists to bring arts programs that reflect the heritage and culture of minority groups and recent immigrants to schools and community centers in Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence, and Woonsocket.
• Rhode Island Philharmonic, $40,000, for the Creative Communities Program that provides music lessons and performances to children living in Pawtucket Housing Authority communities.
• Rhode Island Civic Chorale & Orchestra, $15,000, to reach out to new audiences in Woonsocket and Newport in addition to maintaining its current Providence performances.
• Rhode Island Black Storytellers, $10,000, to expand its programs statewide, to continue its Youth Troop program for at-risk youth from Direct Action for Rights and Equality, and to provide professional development for storytellers.

• Providence Black Repertory Company, $70,000, a portion of which is a challenge grant, toward two staff positions which are elements of the company’s comprehensive stabilization plan.
• Island Arts, $55,000, to support the growth of this Newport organization in its new, highly-visible space on Broadway through third-year support of its capacity-building and program expansion work.
• Providence CityArts for Youth, $43,000, for its Sustainability Initiative, a strategic plan to enable staff and board to identify and acquire the resources it needs to support its programs, facilities, and role as an urban cultural center.
• Colonial Theatre School, $40,000, for capacity-building funding to assist this Westerly organization to build its endowment to support its annual Shakespeare in the Park Festival.
• Everett Dance Theatre, Providence, $40,000, for third year funding of a part-time marketing director and to further increase earned income through marketing efforts.
• New Urban Arts, $30,000, for third year support of its arts mentoring program for Providence high school students and a strategic plan focused on the feasibility of program expansion.
• Arts and Business Council of Rhode Island, $25,000, for second-year support of marketing and operational expenses for ArtTIX/RI, the marketing, ticketing, and box office service for arts and cultural organizations throughout the state.
• CapitolArts Providence, $25,000, for second year funding to engage development and strategic planning consultants to assist this Providence agency to stabilize its financial base and organizational structure.
• Newport Art Museum, $25,000, for third year support of the director of development.
• Pawtucket Armory Association, $25,000, toward the renovation of the historic Pawtucket Armory and adjacent Annex into the Arts Exchange, a center for the performing arts.
• Trinity Repertory Company, $25,000, to support its outreach initiative, focused primarily on the state’s Hispanic community.
• Perishable Theatre, $24,000, toward implementation of a marketing plan for the statewide theater to enable it to build attendance and generate earned income.
• Festival Ballet Providence, $23,000, to broaden its audience by attracting individuals who do not typically attend ballet programs.
• Community MusicWorks, $20,000, for third year support of its efforts to provide increased music programming to children in the West and South ends of Providence.
• Opera Providence, $20,000, as a one-to-one challenge grant, toward funding for a marketing and development director.
• Island Moving Company, $18,000, for third year salary support for Newport’s only resident dance company.
• South County Museum, $17,500, toward the salary of an executive director as this Narragansett-based organization creates an interactive “living museum” for local history and the historical arts.
• Providence Singers, $13,000, as a one-to-one challenge grant, toward the salary of an executive director for this choral group serving Southeastern New England.

Support for New Work
Nine awards were made through the category of new works, selected to provide an opportunity for professional artists to develop their ideas and vision

• Storyteller Valerie Tutson, working through Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), $15,000, to develop “The Space in Between,” a multimedia one-person performance that explores issues of personal and social identity of being female and multiracial. She will engage the Rhode Island Black Storytellers Youth Troop at DARE in writing stories based on their own experiences.
• Museum, $11,000, for “Making History Transparent through Glass,” blown and cold-worked glass works that will incorporate the social, ethnic, and labor histories of Providence, Woonsocket, and Pawtucket, with public displays of the finished works in each of the three cities.
• Choreographer/performer Paula Hunter, working through Jump, Inc. Dance Company, $10,000, to expand understanding of the relationship between art disciplines by combining a live musical performance of Chopin’s 24 Preludes with dance, and a multi-media collage of pop culture, including skateboarding, dancing, painting, and drawing.
• Artistic director Dorothy Jungels, working through Everett Dance Studio, $10,000, to create, with a troupe of diverse dancers, “Home Movies” to explore the experiences of multi-cultural families.
• Playwright Mark Lerman, working through Perishable Theatre, $10,000, to collaborate with playwright Oana Maria Cajal to explore an evolving theatrical process for developing a play in response to September 11.
• Filmmaker Ann Fessler, working through Rhode Island School of Design, $8,000, to address the social pressures and perspectives surrounding unwed mothers and the surrender of their children for adoption between 1945 and 1973 through the film, “Everlasting.”
• Mary Cappello and Paola Ferrario, working through the West Broadway Neighborhood Association, $6,000, for the development of a community-based project that engages the Providence Armory District community in a dialogue on immigrant issues through prose, poems, photographs, and a video project.
• Painter/artist Robert Dilworth, working through the University of Rhode Island Foundation, $5,000, for the exploration of the African American male through an experimental series of paintings and drawings translated into large-scale digital and photographic images.
• Playwright Tom Sgouros, working through What Cheer Art Company, $5,000, for several one-act plays in combination with screened projections to serve as visual aids to probe the theme of misunderstanding.

• International Charter School, $51,000, toward a curriculum director who will be responsible for implementing a multi-lingual, international curriculum at this two-year-old, Pawtucket-based school for grades K-3.
• Sophia Academy, $50,000, for second year funding of Providence’s first private, non-denominational middle school for girls through the development of a gender-specific reading and language arts curriculum.
• Urban Collaborative Accelerated Program, $50,000, for the development of a new school in a to-be-specified Rhode Island community as part of the organization’s Small Schools for At-Risk Students program.
• Times 2 Academy, $40,000, toward the salary of a principal/academic dean who will lead the implementation of Project 2061, a curriculum framework that emphasizes science, mathematics, and technology for this Providence charter school.

• Volunteers in Providence Schools, $30,000, toward an education director who will implement “Early Grade Recovery,” an early intervention dropout prevention program.
• Save the Bay, $25,000, toward the Explore the Bay Capital Campaign which will include facilities in Providence, on Aquidneck Island, and at the water’s edge on both the East and West Bays.
• Martin Luther King Community Center, $20,000, to strengthen this Newport organization’s after-school academic support program.
• South Kingstown CARES, $15,000, toward consultant costs to assist this Wakefield agency with organizational and board development activities.

• Dorcas Place Parent Literacy Center, $25,000, as a challenge grant, toward its capital campaign to renovate the facility housing its Adult and Family Learning Center on Elmwood Avenue, Providence.
• Rhode Island Organizing Project, $24,400, for second year funding of an advocacy campaign to develop low-income parents’ ability to affect school reform in Providence, Pawtucket, and Central Falls.
• United Way of Rhode Island, $20,000, toward expansion of Community Schools/RI, its after-school program for middle school students, into Newport and West Warwick.
• English for Action, $15,000, to expand its community-based English for Speakers of Other Languages program in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence.
  

• South Shore Mental Health, $25,000, toward a capital campaign for the South Shore School for students in Washington County with emotional issues and disruptive classroom behavior.
• St. Andrews School, $21,850, for the introduction of Stay Attuned, a nationally-recognized approach to understanding different learning styles, to as many as 16 Rhode Island charter school faculty members and administrators.
• Newport Public Schools, $10,000, to discuss possible collaboration between the three school districts – Newport , Middletown, and Portsmouth – on Aquidneck Island.