Two Maine Communities Receive $50,000 Creative Community Development Grants

The cities of Belfast and Waterville will each receive grants of $50,000 in order to effect community revitalization in their region.

The grants, designed to support dialogue and partnership http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifbetween municipalities, business and the cultural sector regarding economic development, have been awarded through the Maine Arts Commission’s Creative Communities = Economic Development Grant (CCED).

The Belfast Creative Coalition will use the grant funding to to bring together arts, cultural partners and economic partners to brand and market the greater Belfast community as a place to be for vibrant arts, culture and local foods.

The coalition seeks to hire an administrative coordinator who will be responsible for centralizing community resources and maximizing the synergy within the region in order to strategically allocate resources. The administrator will work on developing a regional cultural events calendar, an interactive website, the coordination of programming and events, consistent regional marketing and branding, fundraising, and a whole host of additional tasks to ensure cultural and economic vibrancy in the area.

In Waterville the CCED Grant will support the citys new Converge & Create brand through asset based marketing, incentives for artist, creative business attraction, and new cooperative programming. Waterville Main Street, working together with the City of Waterville, the Mid-Maine Chamber of Commerce, the Colby College Museum of Art, the Waterville Public Library, and the Waterville Arts Council have come together to oversee the design and implementation of a brand-integrated, comprehensive,coordinated marketing strategy for Waterville’s community-wide arts and cultural assets.

Projects in Waterville will include the marketing of existing cultural assets, the development of a pilot cooperative downtown arts venue and the devlopment of incentives for recruiting artists and creative businesses to Downtown Waterville.
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The Maine Arts Commission’s CCED Grants are awarded annually and delivered to two or more nonprofit cultural organizations within a geographic community or region. Applications are sought from communities/regions with a strong commitment to cross-sector collaboration that seeks to strengthen the cultural assets of their community. Full details of this and other grant programs and services that serve Maine’s communities can be found on the web pages of MaineArts.com. The full press release can also be found with the agency press section.