Deep Center has been approved for a $150,000 Our Town award from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support arts education in Savannah, Georgia. This is one of 57 grants nationwide, totaling $4,175,000, that the NEA has approved in the Our Town category. These creative placemaking grants support projects that integrate arts, culture, and design activities into local efforts to strengthen and authentically engage communities, center equity, advance artful lives, and lay the groundwork for long-term systems change.
“The National Endowment for the Arts is pleased to support a wide range of projects, including Deep Center, demonstrating the many ways the arts enrich our lives and contribute to healthy and thriving communities,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “These organizations play an important role in advancing the creative vitality of our nation and helping to ensure that all people can benefit from arts, culture, and design.”
“ We continue to be honored to be a part of the Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts” said Deep Center executive director, Dr. Holly Whitfield. “This designation not only supports our young people through creative placemaking, participatory action research, and self-expression, but gives them the direct ability to advance local outcomes in our community through their experiences, ultimately laying the groundwork for systems change and centering equity.”
The Our Town grant will support Deep Center’s place-based cultural engagement, including free, year-round creative writing literacy program for students and educators, as well as multidisciplinary arts engagement and asset mapping project for youth and adults.