BRATTLEBORO — Art in the Neighborhood, an organization that provides tuition-free art classes to children in low-income housing communities in town, has been operating since the onset of the pandemic with the assistance of a COVID-19 relief grant from the Vermont Arts Council.
Early on in the pandemic, federal funding from the CARES Act came to the Vermont Arts Council and Vermont Humanities to provide rapid-response funding to arts and humanities organizations whose operations faced financial hardship, loss of venue, or other significant impacts.
Art in the Neighborhood said in a news release that the disruption of the pandemic “meant that we had to close down our usual once-a-week, in-person classes.”
“As an alternative, we adapted programming to an art-supply-delivery model. Every other week, each student now receives a packet of art supplies and suggested projects to work on at home.”
The financial impact of purchasing many supplies, along with the need for more teacher-planning time and staff meetings, has been offset by this grant.
Art in the Neighborhood is one of 123 arts and cultural organizations in Vermont that shared in the grant program, which has distributed $770,000 through the Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.