CITY ARTIST GRANT PROJECT OFFERED FOR PBS BROADCASTS

Director/Producer Melissa Godoy's 2004 City of Cincinnati individual artist grant project Do Not Go Gently, a documentary about the power of imagination in aging, was offered to PBS stations nationally by American Public Television for airing beginning in May 2007. The film features composer Leo Ornstein (at age 109), the "godfather of Modern Music"; Arlonzia Pettway (at age 82), the eldest of the quilters of Gee's Bend, Alabama; and Frederic Franklin (at age 90), the noted European dancer who made his professional debut in 1931 and is still working and dancing internationally. The documentary is narrated by journalist Walter Cronkite (at age 90).

A $4,750 grant from the City's Individual Artist Grant Program helped fund the offline editing of the segment on Frederic Franklin. Franklin served in a variety of capacities with prestigious dance companies such as Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, American Ballet Theatre, and Dance Theatre of Harlem and is a former artistic director of the Cincinnati Ballet. "It was especially meaningful for me to use the Cincinnati funding for a stage that defined the creative storytelling aspect of the documentary," said Godoy (pictured left with Arlonzia Pettway). "The grant helped me to complete a rough cut that attracted funding to take the project to a national level."

Program Funded by City of Cincinnati Small Arts Organization Grant Receives National Innovation Award

In 2004, Cincinnati’s Inside/Outside program (ISOS) received $2,500 as one of three finalists for the fourteenth annual Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation. The national award is presented by the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University (Claremont, CA) to innovative nonprofit organizations of all sizes. ISOS was selected from a pool of 230 applicants for recognition.

ISOS uses multi-week creative workshops in dance, theater, visual arts, poetry and music to assist prisoners with the development of inter-personnel and life management skills that will help them become more productive members of the community upon release from prison. ISOS workshops have been conducted with residents of the River City Correctional Center since 2001.

The 2003-04 ISOS project was a collaborative effort of  Ohio Justice and Policy Center (OJPC), fomerly called Prison Advocacy Reform Center, Contemporary Dance Theater, Women Writing for (a) Change, River City Correctional Center and local artists. OJPC received a City of Cincinnati Small Arts Organization Grant Program award of $6,750 for the 2003-04 ISOS program. The City grant leveraged over $37,700 in additional funds from local foundations and individual donors. The 2003-04 ISOS program directly benefited 245 people including 33 workshop participants, 15 workshop leaders and 197 people who observed the final presentations.

City of Cincinnati Individual Artist Grant Recipients Receive State, National Recognition for Work

Video producer Melissa Godoy, a 1999-2000 City of Cincinnati individual artist grant recipient, received a 2002 bronze Telly Award for her City-funded video project El Ritmo de la Vida (The Rhythm of Life). The video documents aspects of life in Cincinnati's diverse Hispanic community. The national Telly Awards program, founded in 1980, showcases and gives recognition to outstanding non-network and cable TV commercials, film and video productions, and non-network TV programming.

Writer Pauletta Hansel, a 2001-2002 City of Cincinnati individual artist grant recipient, was named 2002 Poet of the Year by the Ohio Poetry Day Association for Divining, a collection of original poetry that was funded in part by the City arts grant. Ms. Hansel was honored in October 2002 at the 65th Annual Ohio Poetry Day Celebration, an event designed to give special recognition to Ohio poets and to stimulate a deeper love for poetry among students in Ohio schools.

Singer/songwriter Paulette Meier, a 2000-2001 City of Cincinnati individual artist grant recipient, won a Parents' Choice 2002 Approved Award for Come Join the Circle: LessonSongs for Peacemaking. The recording of original songs for children promotes violence prevention, conflict resolution, and social justice. The recording was partially funded by the City grant. The Parents' Choice Foundation, a nonprofit organization established in 1978 to offer families information to help their children learn, gives the national Parents' Choice Awards quarterly.