CARES Act Supports San Juan Islands Arts

By Diane Mar­tin­dale, ArtsWA Com­mis­sion­er From San Juan County 

The CARES Act fund­ing brings much-need­ed assis­tance to the state’s cul­tur­al sec­tor and San Juan Coun­ty organizations.

Near­ly 390 non­prof­it arts and cul­ture orga­ni­za­tions serv­ing 32 Wash­ing­ton coun­ties received fund­ing in recent rounds of CARES Act fund­ing in Wash­ing­ton state.

The state’s cre­ative econ­o­my sup­ports more than 17,600 arts and cul­ture-relat­ed busi­ness­es and more than 305,000 jobs.

The arts and cul­tur­al orga­ni­za­tions fund­ed in the San Juan Coun­ty were Alche­my Art Cen­ter, Canoe Island French Camp, Lopez Com­mu­ni­ty and Art Cen­ter, Orcas Cen­ter, Orcas Choral Soci­ety, Orcas Island His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety, Orcas Island Lit Fest, San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre, San Juan Islands His­tor­i­cal Society/Museum and San Juan Islands Muse­um of Art.

Admin­is­tered by Wash­ing­ton State Arts Com­mis­sion (ArtsWA) in part­ner­ship with the Wash­ing­ton Depart­ment of Com­merce, and with the sup­port of the governor’s Office of Finan­cial Man­age­ment, the $3.405 mil­lion avail­able in two suc­ces­sive grant pools will bol­ster orga­ni­za­tions whose arts and cre­ative pro­grams employ thou­sands of peo­ple and con­tribute to the eco­nom­ic vital­i­ty and qual­i­ty of life in com­mu­ni­ties across the state.

The one-time grants were made avail­able to non­prof­it arts and cul­tur­al orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing trib­al orga­ni­za­tions, and fis­cal­ly spon­sored groups impact­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Funds can be used to cov­er pan­dem­ic-relat­ed loss­es dur­ing the 2020 cal­en­dar year.

In the first pool of funds, ArtsWA part­nered with Com­merce to pro­vide $1.445 mil­lion in grants to non­prof­it arts organizations.

The agen­cies received 387 appli­ca­tions and were able to fund 249 orga­ni­za­tions. Orga­ni­za­tions were able to request up to $10,000, and grant amounts ranged from $2,000 to $8,300. Fund­ing was pri­or­i­tized for orga­ni­za­tions that serve under-resourced com­mu­ni­ties, cul­tur­al­ly diverse pop­u­la­tions, and under­rep­re­sent­ed groups.

“Non­prof­its are essen­tial to sup­port­ing a vibrant cre­ative econ­o­my in good times, and the pan­dem­ic has stretched many to the break­ing point,” said Lisa Brown, Com­merce Direc­tor. “These grants pro­vide a life­line to both strug­gling artists and the orga­ni­za­tions that sup­port them, help­ing to strength­en part of the very fab­ric of our communities.”

To help Com­merce and ArtsWA fund more appli­cants, OFM pro­vid­ed a sec­ond pool of CARES funds, in the amount of $2 mil­lion dol­lars, to ArtsWA. These addi­tion­al funds allowed ArtsWA to pro­vide grants to the 138 orga­ni­za­tions from the first round that were not fund­ed and increase the awards for the 249 pre­vi­ous­ly fund­ed organizations.

“We are grate­ful that the gov­er­nor, Com­merce and the bud­get office rec­og­nize the impor­tance of the arts and cul­ture sec­tor to Washington’s econ­o­my,” said Karen Hanan, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of ArtsWA. “Pro­vid­ing relief fund­ing to these orga­ni­za­tions, which have all been enor­mous­ly impact­ed by the pan­dem­ic, will allow them to move toward a post-COVID world and con­tin­ue to con­tribute to the vibran­cy of their communities.”

The grants will sup­port orga­ni­za­tions all through­out the state. Approx­i­mate­ly 58% of all grants went to orga­ni­za­tions out­side King County. 

In ear­ly spring, ArtsWA received $431,600 in CARES Act funds from the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment through the Nation­al Endow­ment for the Arts.

Monies were aimed at pro­vid­ing rapid-relief grants to non­prof­it arts orga­ni­za­tions. At that time, 143 orga­ni­za­tions from 29 Wash­ing­ton coun­ties were fund­ed. In total, ArtsWA has dis­bursed $3,836,600 in CARES Act fund­ing in 2020.  To view a com­plete list of orga­ni­za­tions that received fund­ing, click here.

You can support the San Juan Update by doing business with our loyal advertisers, and by making a one-time contribution or a recurring donation.