Summer 2025 Project Grant Awards

Abenaki Health and Heritage—An Abenaki Year
Hinesburg, VT
Awarded $5000 toward an illustrated novelette that follows the education of a young Abenaki man as he slowly learns about his ancestral Abenaki heritage in living with his grandparents through the seasons of a single year in the late 20th century.

Braintree Historical Society—Braintree Bluegrass Brunch
West Braintree, VT
Awarded $5000 for a series of free outdoor music concerts held on the grounds of the 1845 Braintree Hill Meetinghouse. The event will feature food and beverage vendors, a guided bike ride of area trails, a local artisans’ market, and kids’ activities.

Canaan Naturally Connected—Essex County Fall, Winter & Spring Connections
Canaan, VT
Awarded $5000 for a project that focuses on providing activities for area residents, such as art/craft classes, educational classes, music, fraud scam preventive classes, and technology-related trainings.

Fair Haven Historical Society—Matthew Lyon: Fair Haven’s Champion of Freedom *
Fair Haven, VT
Awarded $5000 for sharing the story of Matthew Lyon, one of the founders of Fair Haven and the first person prosecuted under the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 for publishing disparaging remarks about President John Adams.

Friends of the Fletcher Free Library—Book Discussions and Speakers
Burlington, VT
Awarded $4000 to fund six current community book discussion groups, to enhance these book clubs with guest authors/speakers, and to launch a new book discussion series.

Gedakina — One-Shelf Book Project
Essex Jct., VT
Awarded $5000 to support a book give away to schools. Books are reviewed, curated and distributed to accepted schools and libraries. Books are historically accurate, culturally appropriate, and help children see themselves in a positive light.

Junction Arts and Media (JAM)— Roadside Vermont: Exploring Vermont’s History through Narrative Audio Storytelling *
White River Junction, VT
Awarded $5000 to produce fourteen short narrative audio stories about Vermont’s roadside historical markers, monuments, and plaques, with a goal to engage with the peculiar, confounding, and surprising story of what it means to be a Vermonter.

Lake Champlain Maritime Museum— Collections Corners 2025: Providing Public Access to Humanities and Lake Champlain’s Revolutionary War History *
Vergennes, VT
Awarded $5000 for programs focused on Lake Champlain’s Revolutionary War history. These guided, interactive programs will ensure this important history is interpreted while exhibit upgrades are underway.

Manchester Community Library— Pan African Choir Uganda
Manchester Center, VT
Awarded $5000 for a series of workshops and concerts highlighting international collaboration and cultural exchange. Students will work with the PACU performers followed by a concert for the school communities, plus two additional concerts for non-students.

Migrant Justice—”La Liga”
Burlington, VT
Awarded $5000 to host community screenings of “La Liga,” a new documentary exploring soccer as a site of community building among Vermont’s immigrant farmworkers. Events will raise awareness about the community’s human rights campaigns.

New England Center for Circus Arts— Vermont Circus Festival: “Circademics” Programming
Brattleboro, VT
Awarded $5000 for a track of seminars and activities exploring the crossover of physical form into art, literature, film and politics in collaborations with a local library, museum and schools.

Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust— Liberations Library
Corinth, VT
Awarded $5000 in support of the New Suns Community Center, home to the Liberation Libraries, which loans out carpentry and gardening tools, art supplies, roller-skates, books and printed resources, and provides the space to use them all, for BIPOC community members and allies.

Sandglass Center for Puppetry and Theater Research, DBA Sandglass Theater— Vermont Tour of Sandglass Theater’s Feral Production and Workshops
Putney, VT
Awarded $5000 to support their touring project that serves audiences across Vermont by featuring a new original ensemble theater production and convening accompanying workshops. The project will be to inspire dialogue, critical thinking, and shared understandings about women’s issues.

The Brattleboro Literary Festival— The Brattleboro Literary Festival
Brattleboro, VT
Awarded $5000 to support the Brattleboro Literary Festival, an annual event that brings together readers and booklovers throughout southern Vermont in conversation around books and their relevance to the current political and social climate.

The Old Stone House Museum and Historic Village—Voices of the Century: Sharing and Preserving Community Stories *
Brownington, VT
Awarded $5000 for a project to conduct oral histories and create an educational video around the theme “Neighbor to Neighbor,” capturing how Orleans County residents have supported one other through good times and bad.

Those Who Were Harmed Project— The Women of the Rutland Colony (Episode 2)
Burlington, VT
Awarded $5000 for an audio-documentary series that illuminates Vermont’s eugenics history by centering the lives of those harmed by sterilization and institutionalization, restoring voice, dignity, and complexity to their stories.

Waterbury Area Anti-Racism Coalition: Washington County Summer Social Justice Camp
Waterbury, VT
Awarded $2000 to support a Social Justice Summer Camp with the Education Justice Coalition of Vermont. Youth will develop leadership skills, networks, and knowledge of social justice topics of their choice to make transformative changes in their schools and communities in dire times.

White River Craft Center: Día de los Muertos Community Altar
Randolph, VT
Awarded $5000 to support the creation of a community altar celebrating Día de los Muertos. The group will invite participation in the form of honoring loved ones and exploring Mexican cultural traditions through shared remembrance and storytelling.

* denotes projects which received America 250th funding