Vermont Humanities

2022 Project Grant Awards

Grants

Abenaki Arts and Education Center

Water is Life: Abenaki Teach In 

$5000 to support the development and implemention of a one-day, Abenaki culture teach-in program for educators at the Bixby Library in Vergennes. 

Bennington Museum

Museums as Resources Teachers’ Institute
Bennington
$5000 to develop an intensive, six-day academic professional development program to provide instruction on how to maximize the resources of the Museum’s collection to develop engaging new lesson plans.

Bradford Public Library

Spanish Language Learners

$4000 to support Spanish language & cultural instruction that brings together local migrant farmworkers & Spanish language learners in conversation and to build community through cultural understanding. 

Brattleboro Words Trail

Amtrak Permanent Station Exhibit
Brattleboro

$5000 to create a permanent, accessible and free Brattleboro Words Trail mural and maps user-friendly exhibit on outside track-side wall of new Brattleboro Amtrak station opening May 2023.

Conversations From the Open Road

Lincoln
$5000 to create two 2-week storytelling projects with VT students, culminating in media expressing our journey exploring: Our responsibility to ourselves, each other, and our home.

Dorset Village Library

Vermont Humanities Council Project
Dorset
$3500 to expand our inclusivity to as many members of our community as possible through LGBTQ programs including a Drag Queen Story Hour and Family Friendly Drag Show.

Epsilon Spires

Multidisciplinary Artist Salon Series to Connect and Inspire Artists of Color

$5000 to support curating the second-ever Multidisciplinary Artist Salon Series, a three-day residency for artists of color to gather and collaborate across mediums. 

Foul Contending Rebels Theatre

The Foul Contending Rebels Theatre Collective Presents: Shakespeare’s Shrew
Burlington
$2000 to produce The Taming of the Shrew to explore the performativity of gender and misogyny in Shakespeare’s controversial play.

Flynn Center for the Performing Arts

Director of Education and Community

$5000 to hire a curriculum expert to create substantive, accessible, age-appropriate, and standards based curriculum guides for their 2023-2024 Student Matinee Series, expected to serve 10,000 students. 

Friends of the Fletcher Free Library

Telling a People’s Story: African-American Children’s Illustrated Literature Programming

$5000 to support free public programming related to the April 2023 exhibit of the same name at the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington. 

Friends of the Morrill Homestead

The Morrill Land-Grant Acts And Tribal Lands: What Happened, What’s Next
Strafford
$5000 A symposium to learn about and discuss the expropriation of 10 million+ acres of indigenous land used as the foundation for the Land-Grant University system created by the Morrill Acts of 1862 & 1890.

Gedakina

One Shelf-book Project
Essex Junction
$5000 to provide a full set to 20 Vermont schools and partial sets to 8 schools. We have provided workshops with some of these books. The schools in Vermont has received this project well.

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church

Racism in America Forum
Jericho
$5000 to produce up to 14 Racism in America forums focusing on Vermont and largely featuring BIPOC Vermonters as panelists, to be broadcast on 49 community TV stations.

Green Mountain Book Festival

Bristol
$5000 to cultivate literary arts, celebrate and honor free expression, embrace diverse voices, & encourage a deeper understanding of self and community through a shared love of books.

Lost Shul Mural, Inc (Lost Mural Project)

Reveal & Revel: A celebration of the Lost Mural & Vermont’s immigrant community
Burlington

$5000 for the newly restored Lost Mural and to kick off public programming and an educational series to share the story of this cultural treasure of historic significance.

Manchester Community Library

English Language Learners of Manchester 

$4320 to support conversation opportunities and language learning materials for ESL learners to increase English language fluency of non-native speakers in order to assist with housing and employment needs. 

Middlebury Acting Company

Robert Frost: This Verse Business
Middlebury
$3000 to create a one-man show on Robert Frost, with actor Gordon Clapp playing Frost giving a talk at a hall in Vermont and reciting his poems. In the play, Frost reflects on life, politics, art and poetry.

Museum of Everyday Life

Summer Youth Docent Program

$5000 to offer 10 young people ages 12 -17 a unique training program which will prepare them to  interpret the museum’s exhibits and develop and perform tours, serving as paid docents one day per week. 

Next Stage Arts Project, Inc.

Speakers’ Series on Arts Curation from a Humanities Perspective

$5000 to support three leading arts and cultural curators to discuss the history of their art forms and how they view the role of humanities and the arts in community-building and record keeping. 

Northern Spy Farm

The Sheeko Sheeko Project: Deep North
Sandgate
$5000 to produce “Deep North” – a storytelling project that celebrates Somalis resettled in Vermont. The project will consist of a published book of oral histories and a series of public events and readings.

Norwich University’s History and Political Science Department

Race and History Project at Norwich University
Northfield
$2539.73 to collect oral histories on race and racism from past and present faculty, staff, and students. The Documentary Theater Project will write and perform a play based on those stories.

Orange County Parent Child Center

Updating the OCPCC Resource Library 

$3500 to support updating and improving the OCPCC Resource Library to include more recent editions as well as making resources accessible to people of different reading and learning abilities. 

Outright Vermont

Camp Outright
Burlington
$5000 for Camp Outright, a residential summer camp program for LGBTQ+ youth. Campers ages 13 to 17 come together in nature to celebrate our culture and build community.

Orleans County Historical Society

Time Travelers’ Day Camps: Made by Hand, A Celebration of VT Heritage Arts & Community Connection Lecture
Brownington
$5000 for Turning back the clock to the 19th century, Time Travelers’ Day Camp will engage in the arts, rooted in the diverse traditions of Northern Vermonters at the Old Stone House Museum & Historic Village with added Community Connection public lecture with Vera Sheehan, Director of the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association.

Peace and Justice Center

PJC Author & Artist Series
Burlington
$5000 for the Peace & Justice Center’s bi weekly Author and Artist Series  which connects community members with artists and authors, creating space for engaging discussions on a variety of topics.

Rokeby Museum

Public Programming for “Dissent! Abolition & Advocacy in Print”
Ferrisburgh
$3250 to expand the reach of Rokeby Museum’s 2022 exhibit, “Dissent! Abolition & Advocacy in Print” by providing free and accessible programming to the public.

Rumble Strip

Radio Hardwick

$5000 to support a podcast series of profiles about people who live in and around Hardwick, Vermont. 

Ruth Stone House

The Next Galaxy Poetry Retreat
Goshen
$2500 to contribute to Vermont’s vibrant cultural landscape. Through its programming, the Next Galaxy Retreat is a manifestation of culture-making in action.

The Remedial Herstory Project

2022 Summer Educators Retreat
Plymouth, NH
$1400 to host a Summer Retreat for Educators, both in person and remotely. The event will be held at the Common Man Inn and Spa in Plymouth, NH.

Shire Kids

Free Community Book Swaps
Dorset
$1000 to host (at least) two Free Community Book Swaps in the summer of 2022. Book Swaps are an opportunity for families to up-cycle gently used books and acquire new books to read at home.

Stephen A Douglas Birthplace Community Center, Inc.

Davenport Motor Exhibit Preparation
Brandon
$3500 for a project on the story of Thomas Davenport’s world-changing invention of the electric motor which has never been fully understood, or told. The Brandon Museum is building a new exhibit on his impact on modern society.

Swanton Public Library

Four Oceans, Seven Seas, and Three Million Lakes
Swanton
$2000 for a week-long full-day camp for kids ages 6-12 on the many aspects of world water, based on multicultural history, literature, art, and mythology.

Town of Lyndon

Sanborn Covered Bridge Art Installation

$4000 to support The Sculptural Art Installation at Sanborn Covered Bridge which will unite history and public art in an accessible outdoor space to engage people with the many aspects of place, space, and the humanities. 

Tunbridge Public Library

Library After School Program 

$5000 to support the On Wednesdays program where 28 children have hopped off the bus in front of the library to spend two hours surrounded by books and caring community members at the best place on earth. 

Union Elementary School Caregivers Alliance

UES Loves Books 

$5000 to support the UES Loves Books Week which provides students their own book to take home, regardless of their financial circumstances, gives students the opportunity to participate in a guest author event, and supplies classrooms with a signature book.  

Vermont Abenaki Artists Association

Two-Eyed Seeing Speaker Series

$5000 to support The Two-Eyed Seeing Series virtual presentations by Native American and non-Native scholars and Abenaki culture bearers, offering a new paradigm of regional history and the persistence of Abenaki culture.

Vermont Historical Society

Vermont’s Past for Vermont’s Future: Recovery Through Stories of Resilience, Diversity, and Community 

$5000 to create educational online and in-person Vermont history content and programs for K-12 students and teachers that engage all students in exploring their history. 

Vermont Marble Museum

Vermont Marble, A Cultural Investigation: The Carver with a Ripped Apron
Proctor
$5000 for a project about a young man who carves a marble headstone. Nameless, he tells a rich story that will be investigated to reveal through film, presentations, and oral history of those that survive to this day.

Vermont Sampler Initiative

Vermont Sampler ID Days 2023

$5000 to support The Vermont Sampler Initiative to conduct 4 community “Sampler ID Days” to locate, photograph, document, and promote schoolgirl samplers in Vermont’s public and private collections. 

Vermont Stage Company

Vermont Young Playwrights
Burlington
$5000 for an expansion of the Vermont Young Playwrights program in order to reach a wider, more diverse group of young people through a partnership with Spectrum Vermont.

Vermont Symphony Orchestra

Riots, Prayers, and Light: Composer Premieres
Burlington
$5000 to premiere two newly commissioned works in Burlington and Rutland by prominent BIPOC composers, Daniel Bernard Roumain and Matthew Evan Taylor, with strong emphases on history and language.

Weston Playhouse Theatre Company

Teacher Workshop 2022
Weston
$3000 for a 2022 Teachers Workshop. This 1-day workshop will prepare middle and high school teachers to fully engage their students in our fall production of ‘Woody Sez’.

Vermont Humanities*** April 18, 2023