Local organizations receive grants for cultural projects

The Linn County Cultural Coalition handed out a total of $28,009 in grants to cultural projects and events in Linn County at an awards dessert Tuesday, March 17, at Santiam Place Event Hall in Lebanon.

Coalition President Linda Ziedrich made the presentations to representatives of 15 local organizations planning events ranging from musical training and performances to museum exhibits.

The awards were:

• $1,500 to the Lebanon Downtown Association, for Concerts in the Park. Shellie Jackola of the LDA said the event has grown in popularity and quality of artists in recent years. Seven musical acts are planned for this summer’s performances, scheduled for July 7, 14, 21, 28, and Aug. 11, 18, 25 in Academy Square.
• $2,000 to the Lebanon Community Chorus, for Music Master Classes. Organizer Denise Parmenter said the class, scheduled for Nov. 7 at Linn-Benton Community College, have drawn increasingly larger numbers of participants in each of the four years it has been held. During the MasterClass sessions, vocal coaches work directly with student singers while an audience of fellow students and teachers actively observes and engages.
• $2,500 to Oregon Oldtime Fiddlers, for the state fiddle contest held earlier this month in Lebanon. The event draws 60-65 contestants who performed this year at the Lebanon Mennonite Church to an audience which, organizer Linda Parks said, increased in size due to advertising paid for by LCCC grant money.

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  $2,500 to the Farmworkers Housing Development Corporation, for Cafecito Multicultural. FHDC, which operates the housing complex located behind WalMart on Weldwood Drive, will use the grant funds to provide cultural training in music and inter-generational community and learning for some 150 families, many of them immigrants.

• $2,500 to the Native American Education Program, for the Lebanon–Willamette Valley Powwow. Attendance at last year’s inaugural powwow, held at Boulder Falls Conference Center, exceeded organizers’ expectations and this year’s event, planned for May 30, will be held at Lebanon High School, where more space will be available. The free cultural event will celebrate Native American heritage through traditional dance, drumming, singing, art and community education.
• $1,500 to Sweet Home’s SHOCASE, a community arts organization dedicated to promoting local arts, culture, and education, which is planning a murder mystery dinner performance this fall.
• $409 to the Sweet Home Genealogical Society, for a scanner that will be used to digitize past editions of The New Era newspaper. Genealogical Society representative Chris Barnes said the newspaper archives, extending back to the 1940s, are full of historical details but are in bound volumes with no index, making it difficult to find information easily.
• $2,000 to Brownsville’s Linn County Museum Friends, for an exhibit on agriculture planned for later this year at the museum. Mandy Cole, a museum volunteer, noted that the new project, entitled “Rooted,” will replace an outdated exhibit one designed to more effectively capture visitors’ attention with artifacts from the museum’s collection, illustrations, maps and interpretation, offering an authentic story highlighting indigenous practices, settlers’ agricultural customs, landscape changes, and the evolution of Linn County’s social culture resulting from the growth of agriculture. The exhibit is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.
• $2,500 to the Albany Downtown Association, which has revived the historic Crazy Days celebration. Historically rooted in early downtown (1898) “bargain days,” Crazy Days long served as a gathering point for residents, merchants and visitors and was recently resurrected as a community celebration. The ADA plans to create 12 plaques/photographic installations for the event, which will be held July 10-12.

• $2,200 to the Albany Friends of the Library, to cover the cost of books supplied to the Modern Voices Reading and Discussion Group at the Albany Public Library. Friends representative Laree Dominguez said the Modern Voices program provides underserved communities with the opportunity to read and discuss books on various topics without the need to purchase the book for each month’s discussion. After each Modern Voices meeting is complete, that month’s title is then put into a Book Club Kit for other groups to check out.

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  $2,000 to the Albany Regional Museum, for construction of a permanent exhibit on how Prohibition impacted Linn County. Visitors will enter a replica speakeasy room featuring an interactive bar and booth seating, historic maps of local bootlegging locations, hidden compartments, period games, and a music station showcasing popular songs of the 1920s. Costumes and photo opportunities will encourage intergenerational engagement, while interpretive content connects Prohibition to women’s suffrage, the early Great Depression, and notable local figures. The exhibit is scheduled to open by the end of the year, museum Executive Director Val Van Alstyne said.

• $1,000 to the Willamette Valley Concert Band, for music folders. Andrew Mitchell of the band said its membership numbers have grown to the point that its music library needs to be upgraded to accommodate the increase.
• $2,500 to Albany’s Riverside Cemetery, for an informational sign. Kay Birt, president of the Riverside Cemetery Association, said the planned signage is intended to inform visitors to the cemetery of its history and significance in the community. Currently, she said, there is no such information displayed at the historic cemetery, which was established in 1847 adjacent to the current Albany General Hospital complex.
• $1,500 to Scio Saturday Market, to fund free access for the public to live music and entertainment each week during the market, including such groups as Celtic dancers, Aztec dancers, a marimba band playing Zimbabwe music, folk music and more.
• $1,400 to Scio’s Centennial School, for cultural performances, which will include didgeridoo music and a cultural presentation for three age groups of the school’s students,  which will focus on live music, Aboriginal Australian history and traditions. Also planned is a Native American Cultural Gathering led by Deitz Peters of the Kalapuya Tribe.

Operating in Linn County since 2005 as an independent, nonprofit corporation, the Linn County Cultural Coalition promotes development of the arts, heritage, and humanities in Linn County through periodic distributions of grant monies from the Oregon Cultural Trust, supplemented by local donations.

The LCCC is among 45 countywide and tribal cultural coalitions organized to ensure that Cultural Trust dollars reach every county in Oregon.

The trust provides each coalition with an annual base grant plus additional funds based on population. The local grants are intended to fund a broad range of cultural activities, including arts education, historical preservation, community theater, and library programs for toddlers and elders.