GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The Diatribe has announced that it has received a $75,000 Our Town Award from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The award will be used to support The 49507 Project.
The goal of The 49507 Project is to use education, community listening sessions, research, and art to change the narrative in 49507 neighborhoods to resiliency and beauty through murals painted by Black and Brown artists. Seven murals have been created around the south side of Grand Rapids. Eight more murals are expected to be added on Black and Brown owned businesses this summer.
The Our Town grant has been distributed to 51 organizations throughout the country. Their goal is to support projects that integrate arts, culture, and design activities into efforts that strengthen communities by advancing local economic, physical, and social outcomes that lay the groundwork for systems change and centering equity.
“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts and cultural organizations throughout the national with these grants, including The Diatribe, providing opportunities for all of us to live artful lives,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson. “The arts contribute to our individual well-being, the well-being of our communities, and to our local economies. The arts are also crucial to helping us make sense of our circumstances from different perspectives as we emerge from the pandemic and plan for a shared new normal informed by our examined experience.”
“The only way we’ll see change in our communities is when we start investing in them,” said The Diatribe’s Executive Director Marcel Price. “Through the 49507 Project, we’re hoping to pour hope into young people, poets, creatives and neighbors to make them feel like this community is theirs.”
