Call to Action: $10 million for Arts Recovery in WNC
Arts North Carolina is STILL requesting that the NC General Assembly immediately allocate at least $10 million to the NC Arts Council to provide relief and recovery to the arts in western North Carolina across all 26 counties impacted by the storm.
Nonprofit arts organizations have been excluded from several funding opportunities offered to other small businesses. These organizations are struggling due to property damage and business interruption and need this economic relief immediately.
Current efforts are falling far short of the need and more relief funding is desperately required to truly address the impact to the entire creative industry. Photographers, musicians, writers, designers, craftspeople, artists and others will be forced to leave if we don’t invest now irrevocably damaging the economy and cultural fabric of the region for generations.
Take two minutes to write to your NC state representatives to restart the cultural and economic engine that exists in our mountains. Ask them to support this $10 million allocation now to help rebuild and renew the creative industries in western North Carolina and across the entire state.
The artists, craftspeople, musicians, and creative businesses in the mountains not only enrich their communities, but they are a massive economic force employing over 17,500 people (plus thousands of part-time jobs) and generating over $1.2 billion in sales by importing visitors and exporting culture. The devastation caused by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina has crippled these creative communities across the region with unprecedented damage to property and infrastructure as well as economic paralysis.
Now is the time to write to your state representatives so we do not lose the cultural and economic engine that exists in our mountains. Ask them to support this $10 million allocation request now to help rebuild and renew creative industries in western North Carolina and across the entire state.