Nationwide donation supports South Dakota Humanities Council after federal funding cut
A child reads a book at the South Dakota Humanities Council Every Reader event in Rapid City in 2017. (Courtesy of South Dakota Humanities Council)
The South Dakota Humanities Council is set to receive at least $200,000 from a national charitable foundation to keep it afloat after the federal government terminated nearly $1 million in grant funding awarded to the organization this year.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in February urging agencies to streamline the federal bureaucracy. The National Endowment for the Humanities, which provides funding to humanities organizations across the country, cited the executive order when it terminated $65 million in grants to all 56 humanities councils across the country and its territories earlier this month.
New York-based Mellon Foundation pledged Tuesday to provide $15 million to be divided among all 56 humanities councils. Each council will receive a minimum of $200,000, though the foundation will donate an extra $50,000 if the council matches that amount in local fundraising, said South Dakota Humanities Council Executive Director Christina Oey.
The nonprofit provides public education in literacy, civics, the arts and culture.
'It'll allow us to continue going longer than we anticipated,' Oey said of the donation. 'It was that light of hope we needed.'
The money will help keep the council's programs running, including the annual Festival of Books and the Young Readers program. The Young Readers program distributes 15,000 copies of a book to South Dakota third graders each year.
The funding will help pay for shipping of the Young Readers books to schools, and allow this year's Festival of Books to continue. The festival is planned for Sept. 26-28 in Spearfish.
But the donation is just a fifth of what was lost. The federal funding made up 73% of the council's overall budget, Oey said.
Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander said in a news release Tuesday that although the donation won't cover all the lost funding, she hopes it'll help councils get by.
'At stake are both the operational integrity of organizations like museums, libraries, historical societies in every single state, as well as the mechanisms to participate in the cultural dynamism and exchange that is a fundamental part of American civic life,' Alexander said.
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