Latest news with #SouthDakotaHumanitiesCouncil
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
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. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
DOGE cuts impact non-profit that gives books to students
BROOKINGS, S.D. (KELO) – A non-profit that gives free books to students across South Dakota found out Thursday morning that 100% of its federal funding from the National Endowment For The Humanities had been cut. This comes as the Department of Government Efficiency tries to reduce government spending. Part of the South Dakota Humanities Council's mission is to deliver humanities programming like local history, culture and storytelling to the people of South Dakota. State to seek possible land sites for prison project Executive director Christina Oey says there was little warning that funding for the organization was on the chopping block, and now the non-profit needs to make cuts of its own. 'The first one that to me personally is most concerning is our young readers book. Our Young Readers Program provides a free book to every single third grader in the state of South Dakota. And so with these cuts, we don't know if that's going to happen anymore,' Oey said. Oey says it gets $950,000 from the federal government which is 73% of its operating budget. The rest comes from donations. 'Unfortunately it's impossible to make that up for this fiscal year through private donations. And even if they do come through this year, we don't know what's going to happen next year,' Oey Widman oversees the South Dakota Center for the Book, which is part of the SD Humanities Council. She says the cut will leave a gap in outreach efforts the organization does like the annual Festival of Books. 'Everybody is for efficient government. But what we do with money here in the state and the way that we deliver it to every corner of the state to as many people as we can from all walks of life, for free or almost free in every case, those projects, those programs just don't exist anywhere else,' Widman said. Both Oey and Widman say the cut will hit young people the hardest. 'I think that the literary community in South Dakota would feel it very strongly. And what we think of as the future literary community, the young readers, it's an even worse impact for them,' Widman said.'I challenge you to go into a third-grade classroom where you can see their faces light up when they receive that book. And it really does make an impact on literacy rates in South Dakota,' Oey said. 'The other big one that's concerning us is our annual Festival of Books. Every year we have between 5,000 to 7,000 attendees from across the state and out of the state that attend to come together to celebrate literacy,' Oey said. South Dakota Humanities Council says since the cut, its been in contact with U.S. Representative Dusty Johnson's office. He says he's going to bring up the non-profit's concerns to the White House. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
