Oregon Humanities has awarded $717,000 in COVID-19 Emergency SHARP grants to 60 nonprofit organizations and federally recognized tribes across the state. Seventy-eight percent of the organizations that were awarded are led by Black, Indigenous and/or People of Color (BIPOC) communities, are based in rural communities or both.
Of the recipients, the following Bend organization was awarded funding:
Women’s Civic Improvement League — KPOV High Desert Community Radio
$6,250 to support the launch of Critical Conversations, a radio program, podcast and website featuring 16 years of recorded conversations with community advocates, racial justice organizers, social justice leaders, elected officials and more. Funding will also support the creation of new content, including town-hall style shows that will educate listeners on critical local and national issues.
Oregon Humanities is one of 54 state and jurisdictional humanities councils that received a portion of $51.6 million in emergency relief funding to support local cultural groups and public and educational humanities programming adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic. This funding is a part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, distributed by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
SHARP funding is intended to help the humanities community recover from the economic burdens of the pandemic and to enable the reopening of humanities institutions and programs. Applicants were asked to address how they have been adversely impacted by the pandemic and to clearly articulate both their need for funding and the ways that receiving funding would support their work.
The following organizations were awarded funding:
Albany Regional Museum (Albany)
$20,000
Arts Council of Pendleton (Pendleton)
$8,000
Baker Heritage Museum (Baker City)
$10,000
Barnstormers Theatre (Grants Pass)
$5,000
Beaverton Downtown Association (Beaverton)
$5,000
Bridgeworks Oregon (Portland)
$20,000
Brooks Historical Society (Gervais)
$3,000
Burns Paiute Tribe (Burns)
$19,800
Campus Compact of Oregon (Portland)
$17,500
XRAY.FM (Portland)
$4,500
Chehalem Cultural Center (Newberg)
$17,500
Comunidad y Herencia Cultural (Springfield)
$20,000
Coos History Museum (Coos Bay)
$10,000
Curry Coast Community Radio (Brookings)
$7,500
Disability Art and Culture Project (Portland)
$15,000
Drexel H. Foundation (Vale)
$15,000
Art Center East (La Grande)
$19,800
Fishtrap (Enterprise)
$10,000
Friends of the Cascade Locks Historical Museum (Cascade Locks)
$10,000
Friends of Tryon Creek (Portland)
$4,500
Future Prairie (Portland)
$10,000
Garibaldi Maritime Museum (Garibaldi)
$7,500
Harney County Library Foundation (Burns)
$14,100
Hood River County Heritage Council (Hood River)
$10,000
Japanese American Museum of Oregon (Portland)
$10,000
Jim Pepper Native Arts Council (Portland)
$15,000
Josephine County Historical Society (Grants Pass)
$7,500
Juneteenth OR (Gresham)
$15,000
KXCR Community Radio Partners (Florence)
$7,500
Lincoln City Cultural Center (Lincoln City)
$10,000
Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center (Joseph)
$15,000
MediaRites (Portland)
$5,300
Mid-Valley Literacy Center (Salem)
$10,000
Milton-Freewater Neighborhood Senior Center (Milton-Freewater)
$4,000
Milagro (Portland)
$20,000
Natives of One Wind Indigenous Alliance/Red Earth Descendant (Ashland)
$12,750
NW Documentary (Portland)
$13,500
O’Brien Memorial Library (Blue River)
$6,000
Oregon Black Pioneers (Salem)
$15,000
Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education (Portland)
$17,500
Polk County Historical Society (Rickreall)
$3,750
Portland Indigenous Marketplace (Portland)
$10,000
Profile Theatre (Portland)
$15,000
Rural Organizing Project (Cottage Grove)
$17,500
Salem Art Association (Salem)
$14,750
Santiam Heritage Foundation (Stayton)
$5,000
Singing Creek Educational Center (Cottage Grove)
$10,000
St. Vincent de Paul Dual Immersion School (Salem)
$20,000
The Hearth (Ashland)
$10,000
The Immigrant Story (Portland)
$17,000
The Josephy Center for Arts and Culture (Enterprise)
$12,500
The Red Door Project (Portland)
$17,500
The Skanner Foundation (Portland)
$20,000
Tillamook County Pioneer Museum (Tillamook)
$5,000
triangle productions (Portland)
$20,000
UC-VEG (Roseburg)
$10,000
Vanport Mosaic (Portland)
$10,000
Wallowa Band Nez Perce Trail Interpretive Center (Wallowa)
$15,000
Women’s Civic Improvement League — KPOV High Desert Community Radio (Bend)
$6,250
World Arts Foundation (Portland)
$10,000
To read more about Oregon Humanities’ SHARP grantees and their funded projects, visit oregonhumanities.org/programs/grants/past-grant-recipients/.
Oregon Humanities connects people and communities through conversation, storytelling and participatory programs to inspire understanding and collaborative change. More information about our programs and publications — which include the Conversation Project, Consider This, Humanity in Perspective, Public Program Grants, Responsive Program Grants and Oregon Humanities magazine — can be found at oregonhumanities.org. Oregon Humanities is an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities and a partner of the Oregon Cultural Trust.
