Providing grants, programs, and services to the artists and audiences of Tompkins County for 30 years

Latest Grantees

Arts Education Grant

Regi Carpenter

  • Arts Education Grant
  • 2022 Arts Education Grant: Stories Alive!, a storytelling residency, will serve children in 3 virtual classrooms that include students from the entire ICSD. Students will create and share an original or traditional story in the following ways: tandem telling, online community presentations, podcasts, readers' theater, individual telling’s, illustrations, or other forms of written and verbal communication commensurate with their abilities. Regi Carpenter has been a teaching artist, performer, author, and workshop leader since 1998. She has taught extensively in schools and colleges throughout the country.
  • website: http://www.regicarpenter.com

Circus Culture

  • Arts Education Grant
  • 2022 Arts Education Grant: The Village Circus will start its second annual year of bringing circus learning and appreciation to specific youth currently being served by Village at Ithaca. The project includes: learning techniques and cultural context of different circus disciplines, choreographing artistic movements with their newfound techniques to express themselves, and performing for their families and community. Students will be learning circus in person at Circus Culture’s studio on thursdays from 4pm-5:15pm and weekly sessions will culminate in a show in a downtown Ithaca public park for the community in Summer 2022.
  • website: http://www.circusculture.org

Civic Ensemble

  • Arts Education Grant
  • 2022 Arts Education Grant: The Civic Ensemble Youth Forum Theatre Troupe is a creative ensemble of young people aiming to explore and impact topics that are important to them in their community through theatre. Meeting weekly from November through April, this group will build theatre skills, build community, and create a piece of original Forum Theatre to be shared with an audience.
  • website: http://www.civicensemble.org

Greater Ithaca Activities Center

  • Arts Education Grant
  • 2022 Arts Education Grant: The GIAC Jumpers will engage in cultural exchange and experience ambassadorship through 10 sessions of Tap Dance, African Dance, Jump Rope, Music education, STEP & ASL (American Sign Language); each will empower and strengthen their self-reliance. Youth Participants will have the opportunity to learn from professionals in each element and put it together, choreograph, and debut their piece for our community performances.
  • website: http://www.cityofithaca.org/327/Greater-Ithaca-Activities-Center

Elisa Sciscioli Keeler

  • Arts Education Grant
  • 2021: Elisa Keeler and Shyla Saltzman have developed a unit of study for students at Russell Doig Middle School called Voices for Social Justice. The program connects music from history and today to social change movements, allowing for students to reflect on how they are intertwined. There will also be an opportunity for some students to perform the original song “Lift Each Other Higher” in a choir, further adding to the conversations they’ve been learning about. An Arts Ed Grant was used to compensate the teaching artists and other personnel involved.
  • website: http://musicforunity.org

Kenneth McLaurin

  • Arts Education Grant
  • 2021: Kenneth McLaurin and Christopher Holmes will be hosting a workshop on digital storytelling for high school students. The students will be tasked with creating a short video revolving around the theme of 2020. This program will help students learn how to express their experiences through the medium of video and expand their perspectives by viewing the stories of others. An Arts Education Grant was used to compensate the teaching artists and provide materials for the students.
  • website: http://kennethmclaurin.com

Leanora Mims

  • Arts Education Grant
  • 2021: Leanora Erica Mims is a STEM educator and cloth artist who will be hosting the “Hearts and Hands” Quilt Program for 5th-8th Graders at DeWitt Middle School. The program combines the literary art of haiku and the physical art of quiltmaking to teach students about the history of textiles and quilts in African-American communities. Each student will be responsible for their own quilt square. An Arts Education Grant will be used to cover the cost of materials to make and assemble the quilt.

Ann Reichlin

  • Arts Education Grant
  • 2022 Arts Education Grant: Make Way for Play: Wilderness Case Study connects art to play as a way to foster creative thinking, problem solving, social skills, early literacy, and joy for the process of making art. Ann Reichlin will work with each kindergartener at Caroline Elementary School to create an animal sculpture and habitat inspired by the creatures that live nearby. Teachers will use the animal sculptures and habitats as part of their Wilderness Case Study to develop literacy, curiosity, and knowledge of the natural world.
  • website: http://www.annreichlin.com/

Ann Reichlin

  • Arts Education Grant
  • 2022 Arts Education Grant: The Puppet Workshop will provide the first graders at Caroline Elementary School an opportunity to create puppets and puppet theaters. This workshop will simultaneously support first grade literacy goals and enable kids to stretch their imaginations. Ann Reichlin will work closely with classroom teachers to tailor the workshop to curricular needs.
  • website: http://www.annreichlin.com/

Walking on Water

  • Arts Education Grant
  • 2022 Arts Education Grant: New Roots Charter School and Walking on Water Productions (WoW) are partnering to create opportunities for students to leverage theatre arts as a form of creative expression to deepen their understanding of core curriculum concepts and sustainability issues.
  • website: http://walkingonwaterproductions.org

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