Maryland Humanities Awards Two Mini Grants
CityLit Festival in Baltimore City and Sugarland Ethno-History Project in Montgomery County Receive Support to Host Public Humanities Programs
(Baltimore) – Maryland Humanities has awarded grants to two area nonprofit and educational organizations in its recent mini grant cycle for public humanities programming. Projects that received support through the spring 2017 Mini Grant round are the CityLit Festival’s signature event featuring a discussion with award-winning Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie—offered in partnership with the University of Baltimore’s Klein Family School of Communications—and the Sugarland Ethno-History Project community screening of its documentary film “Guardians of Our Past.” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will also tour Maryland in the fall as part of Maryland Humanities’ statewide reading and discussion program, One Maryland One Book.
Phoebe Stein, executive director of Maryland Humanities, said: “We can’t wait to see the dynamic and inspiring programming supported through these grants. The common thread through these two projects is an engagement with the humanities and its unique ability to bring people together in and across communities to reflect on the past, understand the present, and shape the future.”
Maryland Humanities provides grants to nonprofit organizations that use the humanities (literature, philosophy, art history, anthropology, history, etc.) to engage Marylanders in lifelong learning. Grant criteria encourage free public programming in many forms, using the humanities as the central tools to explore and understand the complexity of issues affecting communities. Maryland Humanities grants have two funding levels: up to $10,000 for Major Grants and up to $1,200 for Mini Grants. To learn more about our Grants Program and eligibility and deadlines, visit https://www.mdhumanities.org/grants.
Spring 2017 Mini Grant Awards
CityLit Project
14th Annual CityLit Festival featuring Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Baltimore City
The 14th Annual CityLit Festival is partnering with the University of Baltimore’s Klein Family School of Communications to feature novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. CityLit’s signature event on April 29, 2017 takes place in the center of a day-long free festival celebrating poetry, fiction and nonfiction. The featured event includes a discussion centered on the release of Adichie’s new book, Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions.
Sugarland Ethno-History Project
Guardians of Our Past
Montgomery County
The project will combine a community film screening and discussion centered around the locally produced documentary “Guardians of Our Past,” a documentary about the Sugarland Forest community established by freed slaves in the late 1800s. The film and its characters look at the topic of familial and regional history in Sugarland, MD through a multi-generational lens and work to answer the question: why is familial history important? The film also assesses why the preservation of oral histories and the conservation of physical places and items is essential for preserving the past, as well as equipping the next generations with a solid foundation to look towards the future.
Maryland Humanities is a statewide, educational nonprofit organization that creates and supports educational experiences in the humanities that inspire all Marylanders to embrace lifelong learning, exchange ideas openly, and enrich their communities. For more information, please visit mdhumanities.org. Maryland Humanities is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the State of Maryland, private foundations, corporations, small businesses, and individual donors.