This year’s award recipients include: 

• Howie Newman providing music for seniors.
• Bates and Tincknell with songs based on earth rhythms for families.
• Delvena Theatre Company offering an intergeneration theater experience.
• Evening lectures at the Belmont Council on Aging.
• Musical storytelling at the Powers Music School.
• Literacy on the Lawn providing a children’s story hour and petting zoo at the Belmont Woman’s Club.
• A honeybee presentation sponsored by the Wellington PTO. 
• Massachusetts Audubon Habitat sponsoring a science program on birds and insects.
• Kate Bowen organizing a hidden poetry of Belmont program.
• Belmont World Film Family Festival.
• Jenn Houle offering a searching for life exhibit at Massachusetts Audubon Habitat.

“It’s the local volunteers who really make this system work,” said Laurie Gianotti, chair of the Council.

“They make limited resources go as far as possible, and they make the tough decisions about which projects should be supported. Thanks to them, the arts, sciences, and humanities are part of people’s everyday lives in every community across the state,” she said.

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.

Decisions about which activities to support are made at the community level by a board of municipally appointed volunteers. The members of the Belmont Cultural Council are:

• Laurie Gianotti, chair
• Annette Goodro, treasurer
• Sarah Frieberg Ellison, secretary
• Jennifer Angel
• John Baboian
• Jirair Hovespian
• Juliet Jenkins
• Nancy Linde
• Rebecca Richards
• Arlyn Ruffman

The Belmont Cultural Council will seek applications again in the fall. For local guidelines and complete information on the Belmont Cultural Council, go to  www.mass-culture.org/belmont. Applications are due Oct. 15, 2017.