We are excited to announce Mini Grant Awards for five outstanding public humanities projects in Douglas, Milwaukee, Outagamie, Racine, and Waukesha counties!
NOTE: The next 2023 deadlines are November 1 (Mini Grant Applications) and December 15 (Major Grant Applications)
Check out our Grant Program to learn more about what we fund!
Mini Grant Awards
The Superior Public Library and the City of Superior were awarded $1,484 for "Twin Ports Perceptions: A Look at Two Cities." The program will use local literature to explore the varying perceptions of residents of Superior and Duluth, MN, the larger city across the St. Louis River. Moderated discussions with local authors and facilitators will consider common stereotypes about each place and its residents and how a specific regional identity has developed for each place. In advance of the programs, the library will make available booklets with samples from each author’s work.
A $2,000 grant supports the partnership of The Building for Kids, Inc. and First Nations Outreach, Inc. for "Celebrating Culture and Community-First Nation’s Storytelling." During Celebrating Culture and Community Week, a variety of traditional stories will be told by local tribal members to a broad audience. Additional partnerships with PBS Wisconsin Education will bring an animated, preview screening about Electa Quinney, Wisconsin’s first schoolteacher and member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians, as well as programming related to Molly of Denali as part of further exploration of the variety among First Nations cultures, traditions, and histories.
Siena Retreat Center was awarded $2,000 for "Thriving in Turbulent Times." The grant supports a public forum presented by Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, one of the nation’s most renowned spiritual and civil rights leaders. He will discuss resiliency as needed by people involved in the work of racial and economic justice, action that combines justice and love, and his own insights drawn from the civil rights movement, Black Lives Matter, Black Culture, and global spiritual traditions. The forum will include issues like mass incarceration, environmental justice, and economic inequality and will bring regional activists for racial justice in the southern Wisconsin region together to build stronger networks. It is open to the public.
A $1,403 grant goes Wisconsin Labor History Society for "Victory for Workers in Millwork Capital: 125th Anniversary of Oshkosh Woodworkers Strike." A public forum will bring attention to the 1898 Oshkosh woodworkers’ strike and its significance to the history and future of Winnebago County and the nation. Historians and writers will place particular emphasis on the role women played in the strike and an actor will dramatize the historic closing argument by famed attorney, Clarence Darrow. Audience members will discuss the lessons of the strike as they impact industrial relations and working people today in the Fox River Valley and be invited to imagine future educational projects and a memorial around this overlooked history.
Adaptive Community Approach in Waukesha County was awarded $2,000 in support of “Storytelling & Self-Empowerment,” a series of workshops in partnership with Ex Fabula that elicits the unique stories, gifts, and voices of adults with disabilities. The series will build on each workshop, while also remaining attuned to the neurodivergent learning styles and varied physical abilities of the storytellers. The series will culminate in two presentations, in which member participants will be encouraged to tell their personal stories. This purposeful storytelling experience will deepen Adaptive Community Approach Program members’ self-understanding and grow their abilities for self-expression as well as impact and inform audience members.
