The US Regional Arts Organizations (USRAO) today announced the grant recipients of Walking Together: Investing in Folklife in Communities of Color. A total of $3.34 million has been awarded to 96 grantees. Fifty-six organizations will each receive a $50,000 grant. Additionally, 40 individuals will each receive $15,000. Mid Atlantic Arts is administering the Walking Together program on behalf of the USRAOs.
This pilot program awards significant nonmatching grants to traditional artists, practitioners, nonprofits, local and Tribal governments, and community organizations and knowledge keepers that demonstrate a deep commitment to sustaining folklife rooted in communities of color.
Walking Together aims to facilitate a robust regional and national support network for traditional arts, support collaborative documentation and marketing services, and address historic precarity and disinvestment in folk arts and culture that communities of color face. Organizations and individuals deeply engaged in sustaining their community’s traditions receive unrestricted grants through Walking Together, with the aim of supporting their existing work and bolstering community traditions and knowledge into the future.
“This is an opportunity to address inequities in arts philanthropy, with unrestricted support for caretakers of cultural knowledge rooted in communities of color,” says Ellie Dassler, Program Director of Folk and Traditional Arts at Mid Atlantic Arts. “Investing in traditional artists is investing in the well-being of their communities.”
Grant recipients are from all 50 states, DC, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands. Read the full press release.
Congratulations to the two Virginia grantees!
Elegba Folklore Society (Organization; $50,000)
Richmond, VA | African Diaspora Traditions
Walking Together funding will allow Elegba Folklore Society to invest in organizational sustainability. We can deepen mission-based programming with the resources needed to strengthen our role as a cultural anchor for Metro Richmond and a steward of important cultural traditions.
Maurice “Tito” Sanabria (Individual; $15,000)
Chesterfield, VA | Regional Mayagüez, PR, Plena Music
Walking Together funding will make it possible to launch workshops, events, recordings, and regular practice spaces that strengthen and grow a Plena Community of Practice. It will also support the creation and promotion of original works, bring in guest practitioners, and provide opportunities for community members and established artists to learn, share, and preserve Plena together.
Virginia Folklife partnered with Elegba Folklore Society to present “Textile Origin Stories” in 2024 and the non-profit received the Community Partner Commonwealth Humanities Award in 2025. Through our 2023–2024 Folklife Apprenticeship Program, Maurice “Tito” Sanabria studied plena drumming under mentor artist Kily Vializ.
Comments