Library Receives Grant for Record 9th Time
June 2, 2015 (Helena, MT)—For the 9th year in a row, Your Lewis & Clark Library has received a National Endowment for the Arts Big Read Grant, an honor only two other institutions share with the Library. Your Lewis & Clark Library received a $16,200 grant to host The Big Read Under The Big Sky during October.
A program of the National Endowment for the Arts, The Big Read is intended to broaden our understanding of our world, our community, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book. Managed by Arts Midwest, this initiative offers grants to support innovative community reading programs designed around a single book.
Joshua Feist, Big Read Program Manager at Arts Midwest explains that the Library received the grant based upon the success of the previous eight Big Read’s Under The Big Sky hosted by the Lewis & Clark Library, "what made the review panel choose you, [is that] they saw many strengths in the application and felt confident that you could successfully manage a Big Read program based on a large purchase of books, activities reaching all ages, and the range of partnerships you’ve developed."
In addition to being one of three organizations to receive the Big Read grant a record nine times, your Lewis & Clark Library is one of 75 nonprofit organizations to receive a grant to host a Big Read project between September 2015 and June 2016. The Big Read in Lewis and Clark County will focus on True Grit by Charles Portis. Activities will take place October 1-31, 2015.
“We are honored to be a nine time recipient of this grant,” commented Lewis & Clark Library Director Judy Hart. “I feel strongly that this is an important program for our community and an important way to connect readers of all ages with literature.” As in previous years, the Library will use their website, www.lclibrary.org, to post the Big Read Under The Big Sky calendar of events once it is finalized.
NEA Chairman Jane Chu said, “The Big Read is a powerful example of how the arts can bring communities together and help us to connect with one another. These 75 organizations, including the Lewis & Clark Library are creating valuable opportunities for their communities to share wonderful stories and characters and to have meaningful conversations.”
The Big Read provides communities nationwide with the opportunity to read, discuss, and celebrate one of 37 selections from U.S. and world literature. The 75 selected organizations will receive Big Read grants to promote and carry out community-based reading programs. The NEA has also developed high-quality, free-of-charge educational materials to supplement each title, including reader’s guides, teacher’s guides, and audio programming, all of which are available to the public on neabigread.org.