Each year, the Belmont Cultural Council surveys the community to better understand the priorities of Belmont residents regarding the town’s cultural needs.
The survey, which went live earlier this month, includes nine questions gauging the community’s familiarity with the council and how it would like to see grant money spent in the near future. Funding priorities include everything from visual art exhibitions and music festivals to programming and events at the local Council on Aging.
“You can’t fund everything,” said Vickie Amalfitano, chair of the Cultural Council. “What are the highest priority groups? Is it seniors, is it families, is it teens? We’re also trying to get a sense of just how people find information about these activities.”
According to Amalfitano, the Cultural Council is a Select Board-appointed committee of volunteers who aim to “take the pulse of the cultural needs” in town and uses the resources allocated to it by the Massachusetts Cultural Council to support local arts and culture projects. Through the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Belmont Cultural Council administers, on average, $8,500 to $9,000 per year. That typically translates to between 10 and 15 approved applicants receiving anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a thousand dollars.
“We average 40 to 50 applications a year,” Amalfitano said. “We’d love to have a bigger pool and more diversity of organizations and activities.”
In recent years, recipients have included the Payson Park Music Festival, the Belmont World Film Festival, the Benton Library, and the Mass Audubon/Habitat Program, which has programming in Belmont. Not long ago, the council was one of several funding sources for an Irish music and dancing event held at the Powers School of Music on Lexington Street.
“I was really delighted in my first year on the council when the Belmont Art Association, working with the [Gallery of Art], started “Transforming Belmont,” the beautification of the transformer boxes,” Amalfitano said. “That’s been a fun project to watch grow.”
She noted that not all of the work supported by the council is grant-funded. The council has also partnered with the Belmont Art Association to create storefront artwork. So far, only one landlord has taken them up on the offer, but it’s a volunteer effort Amalfitano hopes to see expanded.
“I think we could do that more and more in town because we still have those big vacant storefronts,” she said. “It really beautified the town.”
As for the grant-funded projects, Amalfitano said the council is looking to find a mix of projects and activities that cross the major pillars of the cultural life in town. Those include visual and performing arts, multicultural programming, and environmental/natural art—the latter of which Amalfitano hopes to see more of in the future.
“We want a mix,” she said. “And as long as people still have a preference around community-wide and outdoor [projects], we want to make sure we meet that need as well.”
The application process for grants will open in September.
The survey, which will guide the decisions made by the council in the fall, is available online at tinyurl.com/BelmontCulturalCouncilSurvey.
