FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Cultural Organizations Receive over $530,000 in Pandemic Relief Funds
November 9, 2021: Missoula, Mont.
Since July of this year, Humanities Montana has awarded $531,195 in federal pandemic relief funding to support 49 cultural institutions across the state.
The funds are part of the $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package, the American Rescue Plan, passed by Congress in March to respond to and recover from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The American Rescue Plan allotted $135 million to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH); approximately $51.6 million of those funds were allocated to the 56 state and jurisdictional humanities councils for redistribution to humanities nonprofit organizations in need.
In Montana, 46 general operating support grants of up to $10,000 and seven project grants of up to $20,000 have been awarded to organizations in 24 counties. Among the many humanities organizations that have received funding are the Extreme History Project, which received $10,000 to support operational costs, and the Crow Language Consortium, which received $20,000 for their Crow dictionary completion and printing project.
In 2012, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defined the Crow language as “definitely endangered.” The Crow Language Consortium, a collective of Crow schools, colleges and educators, has been working to preserve Apsáalooke (the Crow language) for several years through the creation of the first comprehensive dictionary for the Crow language. In 2020, they launched the online Crow dictionary and mobile app, and the $20,000 grant from Humanities Montana will enable them to publish the first edition of the print Crow dictionary.
A full list of grant recipients can be found online at www.humanitiesmontana.org/grants-awarded.
Humanities Montana is Montana’s state humanities council. With a mission to serve communities through stories and conversation, Humanities Montana offers experiences that nurture imagination and ideas by speaking to Montanans’ diverse history, literature and philosophy. Established in 1972, Humanities Montana is one of 56 councils across the nation that the National Endowment for the Humanities created in order to better infuse the humanities directly and effectively into public life. They produce, fund, create and support humanities-based projects and programs, eye-opening cultural experiences and meaningful conversations.
