Fringe Festival 2022. Photo by Erich Camping.

2024 Vitality Grants: Supporting Arts & Culture

The record $379,898 in arts and culture grants recently approved by our Board of Directors will make workshops affordable and exhibits portable, invite new people to the stage, forge connections across generations and counties, amplify creative voices, and so much more. Read on to learn more about these grantees:

A Magical Journey Thru Stages: To expand their offerings to include focused masterclasses and a spring production that will cultivate theater skills during school breaks and further the mission of building confidence, teamwork, and leadership abilities. $5,000

The Avenue Blackbox Theatre: To continue providing space and paid creative opportunities for artists to develop and share their artistic skills with the community. $11,900

Blackfriars Theatre: Supports an immersive production of the iconic and powerful Broadway musical Cabaret to end the theatre’s 74th Season in May 2024. $6,000

BOA Editions, Ltd: Blessing the Boats Selections seeks to amplify, celebrate, and promote the work of important writers whose voices have previously been systemically erased or excluded from the literary canon. $12,000

Borinquen Dance Theatre: To provide an interactive, three-hour Puerto Rican dance and cultural experience at the theatre’s new dance studio at One East Avenue for four groups of 30 children from four Rochester City School District middle and high schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods. $6,370

The Center for Youth: To add technical workshops and student showcases to their Strings for Success’ programming in order to reach youth too often excluded from traditional creative development channels. $5,000

Christ Church: Schola Cantorum will offer a mentorship program to both beginners and seasoned musicians which will include visiting experts and rare instruments. $5,000

DEEP Arts, Inc.: Using interactive multimedia theater to raise awareness around enduring, but often overlooked social issues. The current project, “Moses Man Finding Home,” spotlights Holocaust survivor stories connecting this genocide with the ongoing global refugee crisis. $5,000 

Eastman Community Music School: ENCORE is an intergenerational chorus for Monroe County residents wrestling with early dementia alongside participants spanning students to seniors. Weekly rehearsals incorporate social time for supportive relationships to form before practicing for the group’s uplifting community concerts. $5,000

Finger Lakes Opera, Inc.: Support for the premiere performance process for “Two Corners,” an opera that explores race and friendship, and expanding the Young Artist Program throughout Monroe and Ontario counties. $45,000

fivebyfive: To presents its 2024-25 Season “Our Stories” with two programs that explore the power of story, help community members to understand and connect with others, remember things, and build community. $8,816

Flower City Arts Center: Expanding the Field is an intensive recruitment program where participants gain technical skills from photography to bookbinding under BIPOC mentors. Students collaboratively tackle commissions related to equity while completing consciously-themed personal portfolios. $5,000

Garth Fagan Dance: This grant will provide operational support to sustain its dance company and school through 2023-24 as it rebuilds from pandemic setbacks and the loss of key staff. $50,000

Gateways Music Festival: Season two of Gateways Radio produced in partnership with WXXI, Gateways Chamber Players, and Gateways Brass Collective, with touring dates in spring 2024. $50,000

Genesee Valley Council on the Arts: The Creative Artists Migrant Program Services will provide art workshops and exhibits showcasing Hispanic and Haitian farmworkers across eight counties, fostering inclusion through cultural exchange. $6,000

Geneva Music Festival: To present eight to 10 chamber, jazz, and crossover music concerts performed by world-class professional musicians May 18-June 9, two free community outreach concerts for families, and six free engagement and outreach programs for children and seniors. $7,500

Geneseo Community Players Inc: To underwrite musician and production costs for a celebratory 2024 musical galvanizing the first full-scale show since 2019 and a sponsored-ticket program to underwrite a portion of 380 tickets. $4,982

Holland Purchase Historical Society: The Holland Land Office Museum’s portable “museums-in-a-box” program brings aspects of the past directly to K-12 classrooms for schoolkids in Genesee County who can’t all visit their underground vaults. Each mini-exhibit matches an era like pioneer farming or industrial revolution with clothing, equipment, and photographs actually used by ancestors before them. $5,000 

Interlaken Public Library: A 50-week arts and culture series on mind-body healing for older adults through workshops at this Seneca County library that will spur intercultural exchange and intergenerational connection. $3,000

Jazz90.1 WGMC (Greece Community Broadcasting): Cultural programming that will bring biographical and educational information throughout Black History Month and Women’s History Month for audiences who would otherwise not find similar programming on other local broadcast outlets. $5,000

Joseph Avenue Arts and Culture Alliance: The Debut Artist Series presents award-winning and diverse young artists in venues in the Joseph Avenue neighbhorhood, including the renovated Lincoln Branch Library and Baden Street Settlement, to introduce neighborhood residents to traditional classical works and contemporary arrangements from movies. $3,500

The Local Sound Collaborative: The Music Makers Scholarship Program provides music education program to children ages two through six for low or no cost, with the goal of having earlier music programming lead to lifelong love and engagement in music-related activities. $7,480

Main Street Arts: A free gallery display and affordable workshops, tailored for all ages, intend to spur grassroots participation in the visual arts and nurture local talent across rural Ontario County. Enrichment offerings include exhibition tours and hands-on artmaking, located 30 miles from comparable centers. $5,000

Mission Fulfilled 2030: The Pillars of Justice mural convenes youth to co-create public art celebrating civil rights champions Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Thurgood Marshall. Located inside Rochester’s John Lewis Building and memorializing his seminal activism, communal art-making builds bonds that bridge divides to advance equity. $5,000 

Mozaic: Seneca County Arts Education Program will bring in community artists to help expand the skills and art education of individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities and other barriers and then feature quarterly art shows where the artists will showcase their work. $5,000

Pegasus Early Music: Pegagus Rising provides a unique opportunity for young committed musicians to receive mentoring, experience performing and educating, and a fee for their work thereby encouraging future early music performers and educators. This proposal will greatly expand the scope of Pegasus Rising audiences through an increased number of artists, free concerts, and venues. $4,000

Prosper Rochester: “No Bullies in Our House” is a coloring book that leverages youth voice, cultural insights, and the arts’ therapeutic power to address alarming rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation in Monroe County. This innovative approach tackles barriers to academic achievement and helps trauma-impacted youth process adversity. $5,000

Publick Musick: This period-instrument ensemble that produces historically informed Baroque performances plans pop-up concerts with integrated talks at accessible community spaces like cafés and retirement centers to provide on-ramps for foundational music appreciation across generations. $5,000

Puerto Rican Festival, Inc.: To host a weeklong, interactive cultural enrichment workshop for at least 20 children that will teach them how to create their own “Vejigante masks” while they learn the history and tradition of this iconic cultural symbol of Puerto Rico in partnership with Eugenio Maria de Hostos Charter School and the Town of Irondequoit. $5,000

PUSH Physical Theatre, Inc.

• “Hyde,” a new work inspired by The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, will use multi-disciplinary art forms – including physical theatre’s nonverbal storytelling techniques, spoken word, video projection, and other technologies – to explore age-old questions of morality and human behavior. $10,000

• Professor Aardvark makes interactive shows using physical theater tailored for multi-generational impact on social issues. Recent piece “INDOORS” playfully investigates isolationism’s soaring interior walls separating homes from communities using a metaphoric revolving door sculpture. This energetic production intends to reach general community members, students, and marginalized groups by traveling to diverse event sites. $5,000

Renaissance Academy Charter School of the Arts: To deliver instrumental lessons in collaboration with ROCmusic to students in first to third grades, the majority of whose families are economically disadvantaged and who had no access to individual instruction at an early age. This effort is part of a new, three- to five-day before-school program. $4,500

ROC Arts United: A part-time coordinator will continue to expand current work by providing awareness of funding opportunities through its website, take part in overseeing the organization’s role in the City of Rochester’s “Percent for the Art” program, inform artists about best practices in various operations and administration of arts projects and organizations, and provide connections to available spaces for programming. $5,000 

Rochester City Ballet (RCB): Emerging choreographer and talented artist Aldo Katton Santiago Mendez will create a new contemporary ballet piece featuring RCB dancers, which will be presented in celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month during September and October 2024. $22,520

Rochester Fringe Festival, Inc.: The 2024 festival will take place September 10-21, giving the community unique, thought-provoking, and awe-inspiring performances – particularly in public spaces – with more than a quarter of shows offered free of charge. $60,000

Rochester Institute of Technology: “Bilingual Titus Andronicus” is a professional Deaf/hearing theater production slated for summer 2024 that explores themes of language, power, and community. $10,000

Rochester International Children’s Film Festival-The Children’s Institute: The festival targets underserved students and features non-violent, age-appropriate, artistically excellent films, follow-up art/literacy activities, and hands-on art (based on films) workshops. $5,000

Rochester Oratorio Society, Inc: Supports performance, school visits, and video projects to reinterpret historical choral work from Fisk University, a historically black liberal arts college in Tennessee. The program will celebrate our region’s rich and diverse cultural history, increase arts access and engagement for underserved audiences, and increase community knowledge. $4,850

Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra: Education programs will serve tens of thousands of students of all abilities through programs including tailored concert programs, digital education content, targeted programs including OPUS (Orchestral Program for Urban Students) and the Care & Wellness Initiative. $30,000 

Seneca Museum of Waterways and Industry: The 12-week summer concert series provides free musical performances by local artists while promoting local businesses, arts, and culture for visitors from all demographic backgrounds. Through increased local and regional attendance, the project aims to invigorate downtown businesses while showcasing the best of Seneca Falls’ history, culture, and natural resources. $5,000

South East Area Coalition Inc: Mount Hope World Singers will acquire tailored audio learning tools and become more accessible to those who have low vision, are blind, or find reading written music to be a barrier to becoming part of the choir. $5,000

Spiritus Christi Prison Outreach, Inc.: The Arts & Nature Project, a critical component of the Family Reunification Program, provides additional methods of healing and coping by offering creative outlets matching residents’ interests – from storytelling to dance – to foster empowerment for those overcoming compounded marginalization and trauma. $5,000

Teaching Artists ROC: Alma de Mexico, a recent addition to this organization’s diverse roster, will debut an engaging bilingual puppetry program that spotlights Mayan and Aztec tales across seven libraries located in rural/agricultural communities in Genesee, Livingston, Ontario, Orleans, Seneca, and Wayne counties. $5,000

The Timothy M. Draper Center for Dance Education: Ballet Jump-start! provides free, weekly one-hour dance classes to three- and four-year olds in Monroe County and the surrounding areas. Free access has not only increased the number of students in the program, but also expanded the demographics of the classes to better represent the community. $5,000

Webster Arboretum: The Poetry Trail will provide a new public arts platform for the arboretum, and for poets from schools, poetry groups, senior citizens, and diverse cultural groups from throughout the region, fostering inclusive community arts engagement while celebrating our rich cultural tapestry. $5,000

These grants were made possible by the Community Foundation’s Community Impact Fund, which pools contributions from more than 100 permanent funds established specifically to support changing community needs, as well as the following field of interest funds: 

Castle Fund for Music Education; Community Arts Fund; Feinbloom Family Fund; Fox-Knoeferl Family Fund; Gouvernet Arts Fund; Greater Rochester Women’s Fund; Mark & Barbara Hargrave Hard of Hearing Clarity Fund; Rodney Hatch Family Fund; Dorothy Kitzing and Elizabeth Kitzing Fund; Louise Hoyt Klinke Endowment Fund; Anne McQuay Arts and Cultural Fund II; Christine Mertz Dear Fund; Dolores and Philip Neivert Ages and Stages Fund; Clinton O. and Mary Steadman Fund; Thomas and Mildred Tulloch Fund; Esther Usdane Memorial Fund; Clara T. Wolfard Fund.