Annual Appeal 2011: Now Open for Contributions!

Don't let the moment slip away. There’s still time to show your support for the humanities! Your contribution to the Council, whatever the size, will help us bring the benefits of the humanities to people in your community.

Here it is—our 2011 Annual Appeal letter:

Since 1975, The New York Council for the Humanities has been an effective, statewide voice for the public humanities. Last year, we sponsored over 900 public cultural and educational events that engaged more than one million people with great experiences and ideas, from Buffalo to Montauk. The Council’s project grants and programs provide opportunities for essential critical inquiry, cultural understanding and civic engagement that unite our community members around essential issues.

Since I the last time I wrote to you, we’ve received great community feedback and press coverage on three new projects:

• 9/11 Tenth Anniversary Community Conversations: More than a hundred communities around the state hosted our town hall-style conversation events to mark the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance.  Each facilitated discussion was based on a short text chosen for specific age groups: for adults, a 1906 William James essay on the San Francisco earthquake; for teenage audiences, an excerpt from a firefighter’s account of 9/11; and for 8- to 12-year-olds, the children’s picture book September Roses.

• Hurricane Irene Recovery Grants: When floods struck the Catskills, Adirondacks, and other valley regions of New York, the Council swiftly requested emergency funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. We were able to send aid to 30 museums, libraries, and community centers with damaged buildings or collections. 

• Conversations Bureau: This summer we launched a new program in which humanities scholars facilitate discussions of short texts, from FDR’s Second Bill of Rights to the Emily Dickinson poem “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” to American Indian author M. Scott Momaday’s memoir. The participants forge a community through engaged, sustained discussion of deep—and deeply human—subject matters.   

These initiatives add to a range of Council programs that enrich the lives of participants through culture and ideas, enhancing our roles as workers, teachers, students, or parents.  “Literature & Medicine” reaches health-care workers at VA Medical Centers, “Meaning of Service” helps AmeriCorps workers, and in libraries around the state “Unidos” (“Together”) helps Spanish-speaking parents and their children find a voice for each generation by reading and sharing opinions in both languages. Special grants for the bicentennial of the War of 1812 help ensure that New Yorkers can appreciate our state’s role as the key battlefield of that war.

We are including you in our Annual Appeal because we consider you a friend of ours and a friend of the humanities. Why not make it official? We’d be honored to include your name on the ever-growing list of our individual supporters.

Donations received in answer to this appeal will be match by our Board, so every gift is meaningful!