Miami-Dade arts programs are getting a $2M boost, thanks to Perez Family Foundation
In its inaugural CreARTE awards, the Perez Family Foundation has designated $2 million to support local cultural endeavors.
A total of 23 groups will receive grants of $25,000 to $200,000 over a two-year period in a total $1.82 million in direct awards. The balance of the money will be used to invest in program evaluation and capacity building for grantees.
Grants were announced Tuesday night at the opening of El Espacio 23, a new museum showcasing the Jorge M. Perez Collection. The awards and the museum were created by Miami real estate developer and philanthropist Perez and his family.
The foundation received about 200 short applications, said director Belissa Alvarez. The pool was narrowed to 70; those organizations were invited to submit full proposals that were reviewed by an external committee of experts, which made its recommendation to the Perez family.
“I learned more about what I already knew: that there are a plethora of organizations in the community doing outstanding work,” she said. “I also learned that there is a great need for funding in the community...we are hoping this will inspire other potential funders to create similar initiatives.
The largest award, $200,000, will go to the Adrienne Arsht Center for arts education and access over two years. An additional 10 grantees will receive $100,000 each.
Awards are designed to support practicing artists, creative spaces and access to local arts and education. Many of the recipient efforts focus on under-served communities. An emphasis was placed on the creation of new initiatives and expansion of existing programs.
Some grants will cover two-year projects. A second round of CreARTE grants will be issued in 2021.
The awardees are:
▪ Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts: $200,000 over two years, to support and expand the Arsht Center’s free Learning Through the Arts education programs benefiting 55,000+ Miami-Dade County Public School students. Along with existing programs for fifth- and seventh-graders, the Arsht will develop a new program for ninth-graders.
▪ African Heritage Cultural Arts Center: $100,000 to develop a concept for a modern successor campus to the existing facility, to deliver a variety of cultural, educational and community programs in Liberty City.
▪ Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE): $60,000 over two years, for its signature artist residency.
▪ Arts for Learning/Miami.: $100,000 over two years, for preschool programs at all Miami-Dade County Head Start classrooms to support the social emotional development of the county’s most vulnerable learners.
▪ Bakehouse Art Complex: $100,000 over two years, for rent relief for studio and programming space to promising artists with demonstrated potential and financial need.
▪ Borscht Corp.: $100,000 over two years, to support Borscht’s Fellowship professional development program for local independent filmmakers.
▪ Edge Zones: $35,000 to sustain and expand Edge Zones’ artist residencies for Florida artists of Caribbean-American and/or Latin-American heritage.
▪ Fountainhead Residency: $75,000 over two years, for artist fellowships, artist stipends and operations.
▪ Greater Opa-locka Community Development Corporation: $50,000 to fund renovation of the historical VFW Building to create a movement studio.
▪ Guitars Over Guns: $100,000 over two years, for its after-school arts education programs.
▪ HistoryMiami Museum: $25,000 to bolster its South Florida Folklife Center artist-in-residence program.
▪ Miami Book Fair at Miami Dade College: $100,000 over two years, to launch a fellowship program for emerging writers.
▪ Miami City Ballet: $100,000 over two years, for community engagement initiatives aimed at eliminating barriers to arts education.
▪ Miami Light Project: $50,000 to support expansion of MLP/AIR artists-in-residence program at The Light Box.
▪ Miami Music Project: $100,000 over two years, to expand programs benefiting Miami’s at-risk populations and communities.
▪ Miami New Drama: $100,000 over two years, to access new space to create Miami-centered new work and expand education programs.
▪ Moonlighter Makerspace: $50,000 to expand the Fabrication Laboratory, S.T.E.A.M. Learning Center and Maker’s Studios into a new 7,000-square-foot innovation lab in Miami Beach.
▪ Motivational Edge: $35,000 to expose youth to digital arts and merchandising operations.
▪ Nu Deco Ensemble: $50,000 to help create a Nu Deco headquarters that will be a catalyst for the creation of new work.
▪ O Cinema: $100,000 over two years, to support O Cinema’s acquisition and renovation of a new film center and expand educational initiatives for local filmmakers.
▪ O, Miami: $70,000 over two years, to support O, Miami’s Sunroom program, which posts poets-in-residence in under-resourced elementary schools to facilitate poetry workshops, and to use art-in-public-places projects to broadcast student poems back into the community.
▪ Oolite Arts: $50,000 to elevate the careers of Miami’s artists through its Home and Away residency program.
▪ Young Musicians Unite: $70,000 over two years, to support partnerships with Brownsville Middle School, West Little River K- 8 and Northwestern Senior High School (NWS) for in-school music programs.
This story was originally published November 12, 2019 at 9:00 PM.
