Boston Mayor Martin Walsh announced Monday that the Boston Cultural Council awarded $303,476 to 137 local organizations supporting arts and culture.
The BCC works in conjunction with the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, according to a Monday press release, and is responsible for distributing funds allocated by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
“We’re working towards making Boston the country’s municipal arts leader, and we can’t do it without supportive and committed partners,” Walsh said in the release. “Funding is often a hurdle for cultural organizations, and I’m proud that we doubled our Boston Cultural Council funds this year.”
The MCC is a state agency whose mission is to support the arts, humanities and sciences to improve community life, support public education and make the arts accessible to as many residents as possible, said Gregory Liakos, communications director of the MCC.
Liakos said arts and culture are vital to the life of a city.
“On a fundamental level, arts give us many different ways to understand the world, express ourselves creatively, enjoy ourselves, to reflect on our experiences,” he said. “They are also a wonderful way for people to come together as a community and for people to share experiences, hopes, dreams and aspirations.”
The impact of arts and culture goes beyond expression and creativity, he said.
“They’re a really important part of the economy,” he said. “You look around at a city like Boston and you can’t travel a block or two without an excellent arts institution that employs people and brings in visitors from out of the city and out of the state.”
Reggie Williams, community relations manager at Press Pass TV, an organization that received a BCC grant for a second-straight year, described the application process as “rigorous.”
“We outlined our organization needs, our current budget, what we were hoping to do with grant funding, the area we were serving and the impact we are projected to have,” he said. “It was really about measuring our impact and projecting how we could better serve Boston.”
The BCC funds are also supporting Press Pass TV’s Media Leadership Institute, said Cara Berg Powers, co-director of Press Pass TV.
“Our Media Leadership Institute is our flagship program. In it, we work with high school age youth,” she said. “Essentially, we connect them to the resources we all should have. We train them to create videos for clients, and we really challenge them to develop their character.”
The Writer’s Room of Boston, whose mission is to support the literary arts in Boston by applying a safe, affordable place for writers to work, is also receiving a grant from the BCC, said Debka Colson, administrator of the Writer’s Room.
“We offer four fellowships to writers who could not afford our minimal fees for the room. The grant money we received will help pay for some of the fellowships we award,” she said. “It will help us support the amazing writers who are a part of our community that needed a place to work. The Boston Cultural Council helps us provide that to emerging writers in the Boston area.”
Several residents stressed the importance of the arts in developing Boston’s unique culture.
Kelsey King, 25, of Allston, said the arts are part of the city’s character.
“Arts and culture are what makes a city unique. It contributes to the vibe a city gives off,” she said. “It’s important that Boston officials continue do what they can to help the arts flourish.”
Monish Iyer, a junior in the Boston University School of Management, said the arts make a city’s culture more diverse, but there may be better uses for government funds.
“Honestly, I wonder if the funds could be put to better use,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I do think arts are important, but we have a lot of problems and it seems weird that arts and culture receive government funds when people are homeless or going hungry.”
Jimmy Pershken, 22, of Allston, said the arts shape culture, both at the local and national level.
“They’re important,” he said. “I don’t really keep up with the local stuff, but I realize that the actors or musicians I follow started locally, wherever that may be. They play a part in shaping a city and our national culture.”
