SC Humanities Awards $71,000 in Major Grants

SC Humanities Board of Directors awarded $71,419 in Major Grants to 13 cultural organizations after a September 10, 2010 Board Meeting in Columbia.

The awards were selected through a competitive application and review process and are made possible by SC Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Funded projects include a documentary about female veterans, a digitalization project in Chester, and two conferences for teachers. Matching community support for the 13 awarded projects totaled: $527,326.

A list of awarded grants is provided below:

Sponsoring Organization: Greenwood County Library System
Project Title: Greenwood Reads 2011
Project Director: Prudence A. Taylor
Awarded: $1,570; Cost-share: $35,415
The Greenwood County Library plans a county-wide reading program using the classic novel The Call of the Wild by Jack London. The program will take place in January – February 2011.

Sponsoring Organization: Friends of Aiken County Historical Museum
Project Title: Horse Creek: Life Blood of the Valley (Documentary)
Project Director: Elliot Levy
Awarded: $8,000; Cost-share: $82,855
Horse Creek: Life Blood of the Valley will investigate the “Horse Creek Valley” region of Aiken County, a geographically and socially unique region of the state noted for its mill villages and first public school system. A public premiere for the documentary is planned for December 2010 in Aiken.

Sponsoring Organization: Anderson University
Project Title: The Secret Life of Bees: Then and Now
Project Director: Dr. Shirley Jacks
Awarded: $6,315; Cost-share: $17,984
Anderson University will partner with the Anderson County Library to present a series of public events featuring author Sue Monk Kidd and her novel The Secret Life of Bees in March and April 2011.

Sponsoring Organization: Coastal Carolina University
Project Title: Writing the South in Fact, Fiction, and Poetry
Project Director: Orville Vernon Burton
Awarded: $8,000; Cost-share: $37,366
Coastal Carolina University will host a multidisciplinary conference about southern history and culture on February 17 – 19, 2011 as a tribute to South Carolina historian and folklorist Charles Joyner.

Sponsoring Organization: College of Charleston
Project Title: Roger Guenveur Smith: Tracing History
Project Director: David Moscowitz
Awarded: $4,000; Cost-share: $8,000
College of Charleston will bring performer and teacher Roger Guenveur Smith to Charleston for a series of programs in January 2011, including two film screenings and discussions, a genealogical round table, and a Chautauqua-style one-man performance by Smith of Frederick Douglass Now.

Sponsoring Organization: National Council for History Education
Project Title: The Causes and Consequences of Civil War – a NCHE Conference
Project Director: Peter S. Seibert
Awarded: $8,000; Cost-share: $192,694
The National Council for History Education (NCHE) will present their annual conference in Charleston in 2011 during the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Sumter, March 31 – April 2. The conference, titled “The Causes and Consequences of Civil War,” will reach approximately 600-700 teachers, historians, and museum and library personnel. The program will include a keynote address by historian and author Dr. Carol Berkin, which will be open to a general public.

Sponsoring Organization: ETV Endowment of South Carolina
Project Title: Belle Baruch
Project Director: Betsy Newman
Awarded: $7,655; Cost-share: $83,127
SCETV will create an original 60-minute documentary for broadcast on the “Carolina Stories” series in August 2011. The documentary will examine the life of Belle Baruch, the daughter of financier Bernard Baruch and creator of the Belle W. Baruch Foundation that preserved Hobcaw Barony for education and research.

Sponsoring Organization: University of South Carolina
Project Title: Always Coming Home: South Carolina Female Veterans
Project Director: Cathy Brookshire
Awarded: $6,000; Cost-share: $11,200
The University of South Carolina is the sponsoring organization for a multi-dimensional project that will focus on South Carolina women veterans. The main goal is the creation of a documentary titled Always Coming Home: South Carolina Female Veterans that will be screened at two public conferences at USC in the spring of 2011 as well as at other venues across the state. The project will also involve poetry workshops for women veterans at South Carolina military bases and an anthology will be published by a major press.

Sponsoring Organization: Southeast Rural Community Outreach (SERCO)
Project Title: First Teachers: Families and Communities
Project Director: Veronica Primus
Awarded: $3,920; Cost-share: $19,420
Southeast Rural Community Outreach in Lower Richland County will present a series of public programs in the winter and spring of 2011, including three lectures, the 4th annual Strong Threads festival, two workshops, and a wrap-up session. The theme of the project is education and family.

Sponsoring Organization: Mt. Mariah Outreach Center
Project Title: Arts and the Humanities in the Hamptons
Project Director: Deidre Goodwine
Awarded: $3,400; Cost-share: $16,000
The Mt. Mariah Outreach Center will bring a series of five exhibits from Humanities Texas to the Stanley Arts Center in Hampton, SC in January – February 2011. The exhibits look at different aspects of African and African-American culture and will be on display to students from Hampton, Jasper, Colleton, Allendale, and Bamberg counties as well as the general public.

Sponsoring Organization: Newberry County Chamber of Commerce
Project Title: Project Impact
Project Director: Ted Smith
Awarded: $2,000; Cost-share: $8,000
Newberry County Chamber of Commerce will plan for a civic dialogue project in which three public forums will be offered focusing on different community issues, particularly education, business, and society.

Sponsoring Organization: South Carolina Research Foundation
Project Title: Immigrants and Communities of Faith: Improving Understanding in South Carolina Classrooms
Project Director: Dr. Jerry T. Mitchell
Awarded: $4,559; Cost-share: $4,675
The South Carolina Geographic Alliance at the University of South Carolina will present a one-day workshop in April 2011 titled “Immigrants and Communities of Faith” that will reach approximately 50 teachers and 50 members of the general public.

Sponsoring Organization: Chester County Historical Society and Museum
Project Title: The Changing Face of the Palmetto State (Chester County)
Project Director: Gary Roberts
Awarded: $8,000; Cost-share: $10,640
The Chester County Historical Society plans a photo digitalization and preservation project that will result in a series of public programs at the Chester County Public Library. The Society will start to digitalize the extensive “Henry Orion Nichols” photography collection, which includes many thousands of images captured over a lifetime of 72 years, thus demonstrating how Chester has changed during that time span.

The next major grant application deadline is in January 2011 for preliminary drafts. For more information about the projects listed above or about upcoming grant opportunities, please contact T.J. Wallace at 803-771-2477 or visit our "How to Apply" page of the website: https://schumanities.org/grants/howtoapply.