Vermont Humanities

2021 Grant Recipients

2021 Annual Report

Art in the Neighborhood
$3000 to provide students at three Brattleboro low-income housing communities access to interactive art and poetry classes.

Back Roads Readings
$1000 to support Back Roads Readings, a series of poetry and prose readings in the Northeast Kingdom featuring distinguished local and regional writers.  

Big Heavy World
$5000 to circulate visual and audio interpretation of two unique cultural artifacts to Vermont’s libraries and historical societies.

Blake Memorial Library: An Intergenerational Exploration of the Indigenous History, Culture, and Land Use of Topsham and Corinth
$3400 to support the communities of Topsham and Corinth as they collectively explore the Indigenous history and culture of the area through an elementary summer camp, Abenaki artist and speaker events, and the development of a StoryWalk. 

Brattleboro Literary Festival: Brattleboro Literary Festival 2021
$2000 to support the annual Brattleboro Literary Festival, a series of both live and virtual presentations by established and emerging authors. 

Brattleboro Museum and Art Center: Speaker Series
$3000 to support a speaker series that focuses on how the history and experiences of people of color are reflected in contemporary art. 

Burlington Community Justice Center: Voices of St. Joseph’s Orphanage Restorative Inquiry
$5000 to support an exhibition and associated public events chronicling the history and impact of St. Joseph’s Orphanage. 

The Center for Cartoon Studies
$5000 to print and distribute a comic to schools and literacy organizations throughout Vermont to help kids experience the joy of reading and overcome the stigma of struggling to read.

Clemmons Family Farm: Windows To A Multicultural World—Traveling While Black
$5000 to support the development of curriculum for Windows to A Multicultural World— “Traveling While Black.” Content will cover three specific areas of history.  

The Current: Catherine Opie Exhibition Series
$4000 to present a virtual lecture, artist talk, and panel discussion in connection with an exhibition of landscape photos.

Epsilon Spires: Multidisciplinary Salon Series Connecting Artists of Color in New England
$5000 for Epsilon Spires and Shanta Lee Gander to organize a multidisciplinary salon for artists of color in the Northeast to connect and collaborate through different mediums of expression.

Ethan Allen Homestead Museum
$2500 to add a free facilitated community book discussion group to the museum’s Lifelong Learning program.

Friends of the Morrill Homestead: The Abenaki Experience: Prehistory to Present—Speakers Series and Multimedia Story Camp
$4000 to support a four-part speakers series including Our Stories Remember: Abenaki Story Time for Families, and a Multimedia Story Camp for ages 12-17. 

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
$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.

Gedakina: One-Shelf Book Project
$5000 to support the One-Shelf Book Project which offers resources to educators including books about and by Indigenous peoples. One-Shelf Book projects aid schools and teachers as they meet new Ethnic Studies requirements. 

Get Thee to the Funnery: Young Shakespeareans Save the Planet
$4000 to support Get Thee to the Funnery’s 2021 summer camp and educational opportunities offered to students in the Northeast Kingdom, centered around Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a teaching tool for dialogue about climate change. 

Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History: Elephant in the Room: Exploring the Future of Museums
$5000 to support the museum’s free virtual speaker series to critically examine museum collecting and exhibiting practices with an eye on historically marginalized communities and experiences.

Historic New England
$2000 to develop a web app, More than a Market program, walking tour, and exhibit to share immigrant and refugee experiences through the lens of past and present-day local markets operated by new Americans.

Inclusive Arts Vermont
$5000 to host a monthly series of virtual talks featuring artists from the “Masked” exhibition, which highlights visual artwork by Vermont artists with disabilities.

The Lafayette Trail, Inc.
$5000 to produce a Follow The Frenchmen episode that will tell the story of Lafayette’s visit to Vermont in June 1825 and describe how it intersects with the French background of the state.

Lake Champlain Maritime Museum
$5000 to host a series of public conversations with experts, practitioners, and historians that examines the impact of the Clean Water Act.

Lost Nation Theater: “How One Dreams: A Storytelling Gathering”
$5000 for a three-week series of performances, facilitated discussions, readings, and open mic events celebrating Abenaki culture.

Next Stage Arts Project
$2500 to integrate historical photos, recorded audio, and video into a electronic book for the Next Stage Community Room and website.

Norwich Historical Society: Democracy Begins at Home
$4300 to support the Norwich community’s civics education program with comic books and programs for the school and community. Topics will include town meeting, civic organizations, and social action. 

Orleans County Historical Society: Time Travelers’ Day Camps: The Life and Times of Alexander Twilight
$4000 to support a day camp focusing on the life and legacy of Alexander Twilight, the first African-American man known to graduate from an American college or university. Twilight lived in Brownington, VT. 

Outright Vermont: Camp Outright
$4000 to support a residential summer camp program for LGBTQ+ youth. Campers ages 13 to 17 come together in nature to celebrate their culture and build community. 

River Arts: Lamoille Art & Justice Project: Oral History Collection
$5000 to support a BIPOC-led collaboration that merges public art and oral histories to create connection and community for rural BIPOC Vermonters across generations. 

Ruth Stone House: The Next Galaxy Poetry Retreat
$2500 to support a five-day immersion into the study and praxis of poetry aimed at changing the cultural landscape of learning. 

St. Johnsbury Anthenaeum
$2000 for a series of discussions led by Vermont authors to help writers think about their audience, what resources they need to move their project along, and to consider the current publishing world.

Sundog Poetry Center: A Celebration of Native Nations Poetry and the Environment
$2000 to support a third event in the Justice—And Poetry—For All series that will be held at Kill Kare State Park, once Abenaki territory, in the summer of 2022. 

UVM Center for Research on Vermont
$5000 to create a dedicated student reporter role to cover humanities, culture, and politics for independent news outlets in under-served Vermont communities.

Vermont Abenaki Artists Association
$5000 for a group of Abenaki culture bearers, educators, and scholars to work with archaeologists to compare perspectives on up to three archaeological sites and present a public program.

Vermont Granite Museum of Barre
$2500 for the fabrication and installation of interpretative signage along a new path on the museum’s property, once the Jones Brothers Company granite manufacturing facility.

Vermont International Film Foundation
$4000 to support panel discussions and speakers around the ten-day festival of independent film. 

Vermont Symphony Orchestra: VSO Classical Series: Bushnaq and Fujimoto Educational Events
$5000 to help welcome Syrian/Canadian composer Suad Bushnaq and Japanese/US conductor Akiko Fujimoto to Vermont for both statewide educational programs and an orchestra concert performance in October, 2021. 

Vermont Humanities*** August 19, 2022