MORGANTOWN — Gov. Jim Justice on Tuesday announced another round of grants for various fairs festivals and arts offerings around the state to help them bridge a year of events canceled by COVID-19.
This round of 64 grants totaled $1,144,010, drawn from the Governor’s Contingency Fund. These are in addition to last week’s $1.57 million to 329 fairs and festivals.
Among the new round were grants to four local organizations: Arts Monongalia, $11,881; Morgantown Theatre Co., $11,881; West Virginia Public Theater, $120,019; and the West Virginia Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum in Marion County, $4,159.
Awarded Tuesday were 52 grants totaling $451,790 to fairs and festivals funded through Preservation WV Grants; the Country Hall of Fame, Arts Mon and Morgantown Theatre grants were among them.
Also, 10 grants totaling $688,220 were awarded to individual arts line items that were included in the Fiscal Year 2021 budget,; the WVPT grant was among them. Two grants totaling $4,000 were awarded to a pair of festivals in Bluefield.
As with last week’s grants, Justice said these were prompted to keep the recipients afloat as they faced summers without customer revenue.
“The people that are putting on our fairs and festivals are doing this because of their love for our state and our communities,” he said. “But they’re not flush with extra dollars and, at the end of the day, when something happens like what happened, where we had to stop our fairs and festivals, it put us in jeopardy of losing many of them altogether. … All the goodness they deliver to us, all the time, is incredible. The economic impact and the impact on tourism is amazing.”
Similar to last week, various fair, festival and arts leaders praised Justice and thanked him for the grants.
Department of Arts, Culture and History Curator Randall Reid-Smith said, “The arts, as creative enterprises, make significant contributions to our state and local economies, defining who we are and promoting the diversity and uniqueness of who we are as a people, and the heart of the creativity in our state are our fairs and festivals.”
Joe Tackett, President of the West Virginia Symphony, said, “The West Virginia Symphony is the state’s orchestra, with performances and education programs in all the corners of the state. We are the largest employer of artists in the state and we have an economic impact of over $20 million, statewide, each year. …Every year we travel the state by bus and car, bringing great art to all of our communities and boosting the local economy through tourism and building community.”
Cliff Marstiller, board president of the Mountain State Forest Festival in Elkins, said, “Our festival has an economic impact, on the entire state, just shy of $26 million, so for folks out there who may not be totally aware of the impact that fairs and festivals have, that gives you some idea,. … We have two full-time staff. We’ve got offices and a warehouse and a lot of overhead expenses. The money you’ve been able to appropriate to us this year is just tremendously helpful in a year that was very challenging, where we weren’t able to raise much in the way of local sponsorship money when we don’t have events.”
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