Anonymous
By the Santa Barbara County Office of Arts & Culture
The Santa Barbara County Community Services Department is pleased to announce the Santa Barbara County Office of Arts and Culture has been awarded a competitive $4.75 million grant to support the health, safety and resiliency of the Central Coast Region through the arts.
The grant program, California Creative Corps, was developed by the California Arts Council in partnership with the State legislature. California Creative Corps is an economic and workforce recovery pilot program intended to support pandemic recovery and the environmental, civic and social engagement of California’s most disproportionally impacted communities. Using a variety of art forms, including visual, performing, and traditional arts, artists will advance positive community outcomes by creating locally-focused, contextually and culturally sensitive public messaging and work.
As the Administering Organization for the region, the Office of Arts & Culture will regrant funds to arts and social service organizations and to individual artists and cultural workers throughout Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey counties. The initiative represents an unprecedented collaboration between County-designated arts agencies from all six counties. The arts agencies will work cooperatively to support program administration and serve as primary partners, service providers and communication conduits in their respective geographies.
“This is an honor for the County of Santa Barbara and we look forward to continued community benefit from our arts and culture sector,” said Joan Hartmann, Chair of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors.
Modeled in the style of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the grant funding will support a media, outreach and engagement campaign designed to increase: (1) public health awareness messages to stop the spread of COVID-19; (2) public awareness related to water and energy conservation, climate mitigation, and emergency preparedness, relief, and recovery; (3) civic engagement, including election participation; and (4) social justice and community engagement. Projects are intended to cultivate trust, belonging, community cohesion and interdependence—particularly in communities that are most impacted. Communities located in the lowest quartile of the California Healthy Places Index will be prioritized.
The Office of Arts & Culture will partner with the Arts Council for Monterey County, Arts Council Santa Cruz County, San Benito County Arts Council, San Luis Obispo County Arts Council and Ventura County Arts Council to plan and implement the program’s multiple phases. The scope of responsibility includes:
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Implementing culturally and discipline-specific engagement strategies to priority communities and trusted culture bearers
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Mentoring—through professional development, workshops or other opportunities—individual artists, cultural practitioners and nonprofit organizations
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Increasing visibility of the work of artists, cultural practitioners and nonprofit organizations
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Engaging in robust outreach to ensure comprehensive geographic reach for sub-grantee
organizations, artists and cultural practitioners
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Managing the application processes for artists and sub-grantee organizations
The regional guidelines and application process will be released in Fall 2022. All funds will be distributed by September 30, 2024.
• For more information about the Santa Barbara County Community Services Department, visit: www.countyofsb.org/323/Community-Services
• For more information about the Santa Barbara County Office of Arts & Culture, visit: www.sbac.ca.gov
Wow.. now that is pretty important stuff.. “artists will advance positive community outcomes by creating locally-focused, contextually and culturally sensitive public messaging and work” My first thought was maybe, just maybe they could use the $4.7 MILLION to help house, educate and/or feed people that are living on the streets.. but, nope, Culturally sensitive inclusivity will fill their bellies and give them a soft bed to sleep on. When is the liberal BS going to end or atleast subside a little bit?? I know that this is Santa Barbara and we have more than our fair share of this kinda krap, but common, you gotta admit, that there MUST be many things that are so much more important in our community that blowing $4.7MILLION on art supplies and employing a couple of PHD’s for a few months??
I agree 100%
YETI and NUKE – No, that money could NOT be used for the homeless because, as I’m sure you read in the article, it was from a grant. Great thing is, we also get grants to help feed/house the homeless, If you’re really interested in helping out, I bet there’s many ways you can!
During the pandemic I received a grant (only a few grand…but it was “free” money to me) that I could spend any way I wanted as long as it promoted “the arts.” I bought 28 gifts cards for Ralph’s grocery store and handed them out to people who were pushing or carrying babies on the streets of Santa Barbara. I concentrated on Milpas and San Andres streets and was able to distribute all but two cards within a few hours. The only thing I asked for in return from each recipient was a photo of their smiling face from the middle of their nose to the bottom of their chins (as to not necessarily identify them). Only one person declined to have their photo taken, but they still got to keep their card. I’m all for the arts, but surely someone is being taken advantage of with this large amount of money being spent on public messaging. Please people, support the arts, but let’s stop pretending we don’t have hundreds of local people and family who are hungry, and they cannot eat art….so give ’em the gift of food, clothing, and health care.
“I’m a grifter but it’s everyone else’s fault.”
Sorry Sacjohn that you missed the whole sarcastic point on this one. Better luck next time! Though, I am sure that you DID get it on this one, didn’t ya?
YETI – lol nah…. your sarcasm was pretty easily detected. It wasn’t very good.
Often being sarcastic is just being an ahole, especially when a right winger does it.
“Rules for thee but not for me” – Marcelk. If a left winger does it, ehh they probably had good intentions, if a right winger does it, they’re an “ahole”!
Lol imagine being so warped by the rightwing fear and anger machine that you tie public art funding to national politics. Aren’t you folks always whining about how ugly and gloomy everything is? It’s sad that you feel that way in a beautiful place like SB. Wouldn’t public art help alleviate your dystopian view of the world? Or do you just want to wallow in your own negativity and blame everything on Obama, Biden, or the boogieman-of-the-week?
Yep, just another confidence game perpetrated on the taxpayers by the Democratic Industrial Complex. Imagine, grown adults chasing butterflies and unicorns to the tune of $5Million.
It’s interesting how they use the verbiage. Anytime you hear buzz words like “inclusion,” “social Justice,” “election participation,” or “climate mitigation,” you know you’re in for a wallet biopsy.
Such a phony use of public funds, favoring the few at the expense to many. Truly shameful, seriously, how many folks or children you can help for $5 Million living in their cars or alongside the freeway.
It’s pretty sad when words like “inclusion” are trigger words. What’s so scary about inclusion or social justice?
SBTEJANO….totally agree…except for that last paragraph…these monies could be used for work programs/ or housing programs and creatively too…leaving out the political agenda