I began the summer with high hopes for weekly blog posts, and I did really well for a few weeks. However, somehow, the rest of the summer disappeared before I was even aware it was September. Actually, that's not really fair--because most of August I was preparing for school--for my kids and for me--giving trial lessons, preparing lesson plans, buying, copying, organizing music, etc. New students are still showing up at my doorstep, but the semester clearly seems underway.

I like to pretend that I'm still in summer mode, and try to sneak out on warm sunny days to ride my bike to teach in Lexington or just read a few pages of a summer potboiler in the back yard. However, evenings are decidedly cooler, apples and pumpkins are ripe, and that can mean only one thing to someone once on a Massachusetts Cultural Council--the deadline for submitting grants is approaching.

With that in mind, I will do some shameless advertising--even as I have retired from the Belmont Cultural Council--because I love seeing grant proposals come to fruition and enrich our town.

The Belmont Cultural Council has an October 15, 2012 postmark deadline for organizations, schools, and individuals to apply for grants that support cultural activities in the community.These grants will help fund a variety of artistic projects and activities in Belmont-- including exhibits, festivals, short-term artist residencies or performances in schools, workshops and lectures.
 
This year, the Belmont Cultural Council will distribute about $3800.
 
Recent BCC grant recipients include the Chenery Middle School for a performance by the a cappella troupe Ball in the House; Belmont World Film Festival for a series of short films from Afghanistan; Yetti Frenkel, who led a creative writing workshop for children at the Belmont Public Library, and the Belmont High School Performing Arts group for costumes for its production of Beauty and the Beast.
 
The Belmont Cultural Council is part of a network of 329 Local Cultural Councils serving all 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth. The LCC Program is the largest grassroots cultural funding network in the nation, supporting thousands of community-based projects in the arts, sciences and humanities every year. The state legislature provides an annual appropriation to the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, which then allocates funds to each community.
 
For grant application forms, specific guidelines, and more on the Belmont Cultural Council, visit http://www.mass-culture.org/Belmont or contact Anne Quirk, Chair of the Belmont Cultural Council, at aequirk@aol.com. Further information about the Commonwealth’s Local Cultural Council Program is available atwww.mass-culture.org/lcc_public.asp.

Think about grant possibilities, and think about writing a grant proposal--as grant proposals go, the Cultural Council ones are quick, easy and user-friendly.

Also quick, easy and user-friendly is the Cultural Council survey--something each Cultural Council does every few years--ask the opinions of its town. The Council  encourages all Belmont residents to share their perspectives of the town’s cultural landscape by taking a short survey athttp://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6Q7332X

Well, having taught all day, I'm going to sneak out again to remember summer by picking tomatoes from the garden and reading that potboiler...