Mass Cultural Council Center awards $680K to Springfield artists

Posted: Apr 10, 2023 / 09:46 PM EDT

Updated: Apr 10, 2023 / 10:24 PM EDT

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – Springfield creatives have received a grant to better their mission of building stronger networks and connections within the city.

A total of $680,000 was awarded by the Mass Cultural Council Sector Recovery Grants for Individuals. There were 136 artistic award recipients honored by the Springfield Cultural Partnership at the Springfield Community Music School Monday night.

Each individual artist is expected to receive $5,000 for their efforts with community-based arts, multidisciplinary, crafts, music, visual arts, theatre, design arts, photography, folk/traditional arts, dance, and more. Especially for their contributions to the community like designing murals across downtown.

City grantees account for 53% of Hampden County’s grant awards, the largest grant announcement ever made by Mass Cultural Council. “The state legislature gave us quite a bit of money, $51 million to redistribute to artists and art organizations across the state for pandemic recovery,” said Michael J. Bobbitt, Executive Director of Mass Cultural Council. “The money is there for them to start growing out of the pandemic and recovering from the devastation of the pandemic, the pandemic put a lot of people out of work, so this is going to give them a nice little jumpstart.”

Officials said the awards will boost the sector’s economy and bring each recipient on the path to success. Springfield was third out of five Massachusetts cities with over 100 grantees.

All 136 recipients that have been awarded are the following: