Grants Awarded
Historic Deerfield, Inc. – $25,000
Luce/Americana Curatorial Fellowship
With this grant, Historic Deerfield will create a one-year fellowship position (the Luce/Americana Curatorial Fellow) to research, share, and publish new scholarship on early 19th-century New England women artists. These artists often defied expectations, overcame serious obstacles with determination, and challenged gender roles to create artworks of significant value and importance. The fellow will focus on Historic Deerfield's collection of nearly 2000 objects of fine art and will generate greater understanding of the role of New England women in the arts of the 19th century.
Grow Jackson – $20,000
Food Hub Planning Project
This grant will enable Grow Jackson to complete a plan and strategy for developing a regional food hub in Jackson County to strengthen the local food economy and fill a critical infrastructure gap in South Central Michigan. The planned food hub will include a year-round farm stop (a locally sourced, consignment-based grocery store), kitchen space for light processing and packaging of wholesale products, community space for events and educational programming, and on-site space for the Jackson farmer's market. The hub will support farmers, food producers, and consumers in Jackson County by creating new markets, reducing barriers to food access, and fostering economic opportunities, and will strengthen the statewide food system by linking with food hubs in Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, Detroit, and Grand Rapids.
Crosshatch Center for Art & Ecology – $25,000
Strengthening Small-scale Livestock Producers in Northwest Lower Michigan
Crosshatch Center for Art & Ecology will use this grant to support a pilot initiative designed to strengthen small-scale livestock farming systems in Northwest Lower Michigan. The initiative will create a business-to-business collaborative of livestock farmers that will work to identify and overcome barriers to small-scale livestock production, such as missing or inadequate infrastructure and processing capacity, lack of direct-to-consumer and wholesale market opportunities, the need for mentoring and peer learning, and the sharing of knowledge and information related to climate-smart pasture and livestock management practices. The ultimate goal of the project is to create more resilient supply chains and livestock farms that successfully mitigate economic and environmental risks in their business practices.
Craft in America, Inc. – $25,000
American Handwork, a publication in conjunction with Handwork 2026
Americana awarded this grant to Craft in America to support a publication (American Handwork) that will trace the trajectory of American craft to reveal America's collective heritage. The book will focus on 100 defining objects of material culture from pre-contact, Colonial America, and the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, from a multitude of disciplines and with a focus on overlooked and under-recognized makers, to document the intersection of craft, American history, design, art, and decorative arts. The publication is part of a collaborative effort (Handwork 2026) that will showcase the importance of the handmade and celebrate the diversity of craft that defines America.
Citizens for a Safe and Clean Lake Superior – $25,000
Educating and Advocating for Wetland Protections in Marquette County - Phase 2
This grant will support the second phase of a targeted program to strengthen wetland protections in Powell, Marquette, and Chocolay townships in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, along the shores of Lake Superior. In the first phase of the project, Citizens for a Safe and Clean Lake Superior (CSCLS) engaged local residents in the need for wetland protections, reviewed local wetland protections, and began conversations with townships on the need for policy reform. In this second year, CSCLS will complete the project by maintaining the community's increased awareness and ramping up engagement with local decision makers to convince them to adopt CSCLS's policy recommendations. In addition, CSCLS will use a portion of the grant to expand a new program designed to incentivize landowners to protect wetlands on their properties through conservation easements.
Socially Responsible Agriculture Project – $25,058
Water Rangers Program Expansion: Supporting Rural and Native Communities in Michigan
The Socially Responsible Agriculture Project (SRAP) will use this grant for outreach to and engagement with residents of rural Michigan to combat pollution caused by concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). CAFOs in Michigan have been shown to pollute the environment, threaten public health, destroy ecosystems, and decrease quality of life for Michigan communities. Specifically, SRAP will develop culturally relevant training materials, issue public notices of CAFO permit applications, offer training and educational webinars, host community listening sessions, and strengthen the network of resident scientists in Michigan who are dedicated to protecting public health and rural ecosystems.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston – $37,500
Revolutionizing Icons: Reimagining the 18th-century Art of the Americas Galleries
This multi-year grant will support the reinstallation of the 18-century Art of the Americas galleries at the MFA Boston in preparation for the U.S. 250th anniversary. The new galleries will include paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, and works on paper from the period 1680 to 1820 from across North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean, including Indigenous and island nations. The galleries will be reimagined to "show the interplay of the diverse cultures active in this period, and to consider the role of the arts in shaping our understanding of the nation's founding, and our broader ideas about the Americas and Americanness - as a place, an identity, and an aspiration."
Argus Farm Stop / Fair Food Network – $15,000
Partnership to Expand the Farm Stop Model
Farmers, consumers, policymakers, and others are interested in learning about and expanding the farm stop model. Farm stops are everyday farmers markets where farmers own and price their products but importantly can return to the farm while their products remain on sale daily and year-round. Argus Farm Stop in Ann Arbor, MI (through the Fair Food Network, its fiscal sponsor) will use this grant to convene interested participants in a farm stop conference that will serve as a resource for current farm stops, communities looking to start farm stops, policy makers, and those interested in growing food systems.
Edison Institute – $25,000
The Oxbow and Suwanee Lagoon Mycoremediation Demonstration Project
With this grant, The Henry Ford (THF) and the Mushroom Conservatory (TMC) will work together to pilot a water quality restoration project grounded in "mycoremediation" - a developing field of environmental restoration that utilizes the biochemical properties of certain fungi to extract contaminants from water and sediment. The pilot will be implemented in a small channel of the Rouge River, the Oxbow, which runs through THF property with the assistance of students at the Henry Ford Academy. The participants hope to use this grant to demonstrate that the water quality improvements available through mycoremediation could potentially be scaled to improve water quality in the larger Rouge River.
Asbury Community Development Corporation – $30,000
Asbury Farm Incubator Project
Asbury CDC will use this grant to launch a farmer incubator program in Flint, MI. Asbury will develop a business plan and pilot an incubator program that provides resources and training to new farmers interested in growing food for themselves and the community. The project will increase the output of Asbury's farm, engage the community, and enhance the local food ecosystem, benefiting Flint residents through improved access to nutritious, locally-grown food and a stronger and more resilient local food economy.
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation – $32,000
Worlds Collide: Archaeology and Global Trade in 18th-Century Williamsburg
Colonial Williamsburg will use this grant to create a contextual video to accompany "Worlds Collide," an exhibition of archaeological materials excavated in Williamsburg, VA, that will be on view at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum from October 2024 through October 2029. The display will highlight the diversity and interconnectedness of people in 18th-century Williamsburg and the globalized nature of urban life during the American Revolution by exploring the diversity of people, cultures and materials that collectively interacted in the 18th-century Williamsburg community. The exhibition will include objects that belonged to European colonists, free and enslaved Blacks, and American Indians that were either made here in America or shipped from Asia, Europe and Latin America. "Worlds Collide" is a central component of Colonial Williamsburg's celebration and commemoration of America250.
Eastern Market Corporation – $25,000
Eastern Market Microloan Revolving Fund
Eastern Market has an extensive portfolio of programs that support small food businesses and food entrepreneurs in Detroit, MI. Through these programs, Eastern Market has learned that the greatest and most common challenge that food entrepreneurs face when trying to grow or scale their businesses is accessing lending capital. With this grant ($25,000 per year for two years), Eastern Market and ProsperUs, a CDFI and entrepreneurial support organization, will pilot a new Eastern Market Microloan Revolving Fund that will provide microloans of $1,000 to $2,500 to businesses that utilize Eastern Market's business support programs and wraparound services. Borrowers will be able to use the loans to purchase or lease equipment, conduct market research, design marketing materials, secure inventory, or for other uses that enable them to reach the next level in their growth.
Legacy Land Conservancy – $15,900
Protecting Local Water Quality Through Permanent Land Protection
This grant will provide the final 5% needed to permanently protect 35 acres of critically important property in the Stony Creek region of the Huron River Watershed in southeast Michigan. The property is mostly wooded with extensive wetlands and 3,000 feet of frontage on a tributary to Stony Creek, which flows to Lake Erie. The property features vernal pools - seasonal wetlands that appear in the spring - that provide critical habitat that is vital to the forest ecosystem and is in an area that is at high risk for development.
Muskegon River Watershed Assembly – $25,000
Friends of the Muskegon River
Conservation projects that preserve, protect, restore, and sustain the Muskegon River are most efficient, impactful, and economically sustainable when local communities and stakeholders are actively engaged. This grant will enable the Muskegon River Watershed Assembly to create up to four "Friends of the Muskegon River" groups to facilitate local community and leadership development throughout the nine-county Muskegon River watershed. The "Friends" groups will help to identify priority projects and ensure that the scientific and technical expertise that MWRA and its partners bring to conservation projects is integrated with local community assets, economies, people, interests, and culture.
Freshwater Future – $25,000
Increasing Capacity of Northern Michigan Environmental Groups
Northern Michigan (Northern Lower Peninsula and the Upper Peninsula) contains some of the state's most pristine and sensitive water resources - cold water trout streams, untouched Great Lakes shorelines, and high-quality inland lakes. Because critical decisions that impact water are made at the local level, community engagement in water decision making is extremely important. Without community-level structures able to engage with permitting and planning processes, degradation of water quality and environmental injustices can be created. With this grant, Freshwater Future will provide consulting and capacity building support to northern Michigan environmental groups to ensure that the capacity exists for sustained engagement and that strong, high-capacity organizations are working to ensure Great Lakes water issues are being addressed.
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