Arts and Culture Awards applications now open

NACo Arts and Culture Award submissions are due April 17

The Arts and Culture Commission recently announced it is now accepting applications for the 2017 Arts and Culture Award.

The award provides an opportunity for NACo members to showcase county programs and initiatives that demonstrate how the arts can be used to enrich American cultural and intellectual life, promote lifelong learning and protect the nation’s heritage.

The deadline to apply is April 17, and the 2017 Arts and Culture Award recipient will be announced this July at the Arts and Culture Commission Awards Dinner at the NACo Annual Conference in Franklin County, Ohio.

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NACo Arts and Culture Award

“The arts are much more than just a performance at your local theater. As a therapy tool, they have a powerful ability to aid in intervention and prevention to improve the mental health of veterans, the elderly and incarcerated youth,” said Commissioner Kay Cashion, Arts and Culture Commission chair.

 The award program is a friendly competition to recognize an innovative, county-led arts and culture program or project that is creative in its approach to integrating the arts with broader county strategies. The best programs and projects are transferable, engage the community as a whole and have a demonstrated impact on the community.

Recent winners include Mobile County, Ala. for its efforts to preserve the Mobile Symphony Orchestra’s strings programs in the county’s public schools (2014), Monterey County, Calif. for its Arts as Intervention and Healing program for incarcerated youth in the Monterey County Probation Department (2015) and Hennepin County for its robust arts and culture programming within its library system (2016).

When former NACo President Betty Lou Ward established the Arts and Culture Commission in 1998, she stated, “in an age of limited resources, the arts are sometimes viewed as unnecessary and inconsequential. But from economic development to juvenile justice to education, the statistical evidence illustrates that attention to and participation in the arts makes a difference.”