22 Monterey County GIVES! 2023 mcgives.com Arts & Culture DONate online mcgives.com Alisal Center for the Fine Arts Year Founded: 1988 Paid Staff and Volunteers: 10 paid, 26 volunteers Budget: $160,000 758-5715 alisalfinearts.org Big Idea: Alisal Center for the Fine Arts (ACFA) provides free dance classes for low-income youth throughout Monterey County, particularly in the East Salinas neighborhood. Dance provides a medium for expression with specific importance across different cultures. This Big Idea includes a signature blend of ACFA’s folkloric dance choreography and performance with physical education, dance history and music theory, all in a nurturing environment. Donations support this organization’s programming, from program supplies like musical instruments to instructor fees. “I have been with ACFA since fifth grade, and it has nurtured my interest in music and dance for many years. I have been learning guitar and dancing Baile Folklórico for three years. ACFA is like my second home. It is a safe space where I can be myself. Because of ACFA, I am now able to play guitar and bass very well; I am now in the performance ensemble and perform at community events. I plan to be with ACFA until I go to college—they are my second family.” -Sebastian Montoya, 11th-grader Arts Council for Monterey County Year Founded: 1982 Paid Staff and Volunteers: 40 paid, 40 volunteers Budget: $2,450,000 622-9060 arts4mc.org Big Idea: Arts Council for Monterey County continues its work supporting vulnerable people in our community via the therapeutic practice of making art. Donor support powers Arts4Healing, visual art programs for at-risk youth, unhoused people, survivors of human trafficking, people with disabilities, senior citizens and veterans. Professional artists with Arts4MC receive specialized training through the UCLA Arts & Healing program. This Big Idea helps these local artists guide their students in expressing their artistic side while also practicing mindfulness, relieving stress, and achieving social-emotional learning goals. “The art provides a different modality for our survivors. Especially because most of their classes are trauma based, this is such a nice break from that! Plus their art is BEAUTIFUL and we are going to hang all their creations in our new classrooms.” -Ashley Chesney, executive director, Set Free Monterey Bay Arts Habitat Year Founded: 1991 Paid Staff and Volunteers: 2 paid, 14 volunteers Budget: $74,000 624-6111 artshabitat.org Big Idea: Arts Habitat celebrates artists at work in their natural surroundings. This nonprofit’s Big Idea supports the annual Monterey County Artists Studio Tour. While the tour has taken off, inviting the public into artists’ studios, Arts Habitat wishes to expand this Big Idea through advocating for affordable housing. This nonprofit has worked for 27 years to continue pushing to establish low-cost, live-work space for artists at East Garrison. Planning has accelerated this year for 65 units of live-work housing for low- and moderate-income artists, with construction potentially taking shape within two years by developer Artspace. Arts Habitat remains the local point of contact for this needed project. Big Sur Fiddle Camp Year Founded: 2008 Paid Staff and Volunteers: 25 paid, 30 volunteers Budget: $76,000 667-0109 bigsurfiddlecamp.org Big Idea: MCGives! likes to dream big, and so does Big Sur Fiddle Camp. Its Big Idea kicks off a legacy project estimated at $8 million: building a cultural center for the Big Sur community called the Big Sur Cultural and Ecology Center. Currently, Big Sur Fiddle Camp operates its programming out of personal homes and the rustic Big Sur Grange community hall. But with the camp expanding to include the staging of a full-scale musical, this nonprofit sees the need for a more permanent home. “The glorious reverberations from camp are still ringing in my soul. Big Sur Fiddle Camp was an unqualified success, a stellar event in so many ways. The camp was one big kitchen where mad genius musical cooks were creating new musical dishes day and night. The cooking and the eating (the musical creating and the listening/appreciating) became indistinguishable. What a joy it was to watch such an interesting and wide variety of young ones, from around the country and the world, find their own ways into the community that was forming.” -Rick Chelew spotlight The front seats let me clearly see professionals playing and inspire me to work harder on my own cello playing.” Fuyu Meyer, Chamber Music Monterey Bay
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