Thirty-eight local artists, schools and non-profit organizations have been recognized by the Quad City Arts as awardees for the 2025 Arts Dollars grant.
Since 1979, the Arts Dollars grant has awarded more than $1.6 million to local artistic endeavors. Funded by the Hubbell-Waterman Foundation, the Quad Cities Community Foundation - Isabel Bloom Art Education Endowment and the Illinois Arts Council Agency, a total of around $150,000 was awarded this year, an almost $35,000 increase from last year’s grant cycle.
Quad City Arts Events Coordinator Ben Gougeon said this expansion allowed the Quad City Arts to consider a variety of applicants.
“When the grant panel is meeting and discussing all the applications, and we typically get between 50 and 55 applications every year, they're looking at if they're from our area and if they're paying local artists,” Gougeon said. “But they also try to really get as wide a range of different types of projects as possible so that these projects are reaching as many different kinds of people as possible.”
For refugee services non-profit and Arts Dollars grant recipient World Relief Quad Cities, Education Manager Laura Sauer said this funding comes at a time when community support is essential.
“I just feel that that is a really unique, awesome thing to have local partners engaging with people who have experienced trauma, they've experienced tragedy, and through their partnership, they're able to kind of mitigate some of that, and they're able to help us provide resources and services that's going to allow people to take a step forward into a new chapter," Sauer said. "And right now, with the current funding issues being what they are, local grants are very vital.”
With the additional funding, Sauer said World Relief QC can support their second year of the Arts in English Summer Camp for refugee youth.
As part of the non-profit’s school programming for almost 100 K-12 students, the camp will offer fine arts enrichment, focusing on language development through music and English workshops. Plus, visual arts programming with a visiting muralist.
“One goal is, of course, to allow our refugee youth just exposure to the fine arts, to provide them some opportunities that they wouldn't normally have and probably haven't had,” Sauer said. “Another goal is to allow students to express themselves more easily, so through the fine arts and through English education. And then our final goal is to provide social-emotional learning and academic retention during the summertime.”
While the 2025 Arts Dollars grant recipients include repeats like World Relief QC’s summer camp, new projects are emerging within the Quad Cities.
Jessica Beshears is one of nine individual artists recognized in this year’s grant cycle, funding the creation of her experimental and fine arts magazine, “Undercurrent”. Highlighting art of the past, present and future within the Quad Cities region, the first issue of her annual publication is set for release in the fall.
“You can't go anywhere in history without having art, but with art history, it takes people writing and recording what's going on and talking about how these things are all connected,” Beshears said. “So I really wanted to get something like that started for the Quad Cities because there's been a huge artistic movement here, and it's really just blossoming and growing, and there's an incredible wealth of artists here.”
WVIK also received funding in this grant cycle and will use the $5,000 grant to begin construction of a community podcast studio.
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