Members of the Pittsfield Cultural Council pose at Wednesday's recognition event at Zucchini's.

Council Chair Marilyn Gerhard says the 79 grant applications for fiscal 2025 were the most she has seen during her time on the council.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Pittsfield Cultural Council celebrated its 2025 grant awardees at Zucchini's last week.

Council Chair Marilyn Gerhard welcomed everyone to the Wednesday event and congratulated those who received funding.

"We provide grants to help underwrite projects, programs and events in the arts, humanities and interpretive sciences," she said.

Gerhard said there were 79 applicants last year that council members had to sift through, one of the highest numbers she has seen in her time on the council.

"So seven years, that was the most that I could see. And so we really had to pare down the requests in order to be able to fund the people that we did."

The grants ranged from $200 to $3,000 to 36 different organizations.

"We funded [36] projects, and I congratulate you all. Thank you so much for what you've done for the city of Pittsfield and for culture, as we know, culture is the lifeblood of our society, and we have to do everything we can to keep the flame alive," Gerhard said.

Some of the projects include Berkshire Community Center, Roots Rising, Berkshire Music School, Kids 4 Harmony, and more.

Kids 4 Harmony received $2,500 for programming. The free classical music program is for youth from under-resourced communities in the county.

"We have excellent teaching artists that are in this school with the students every day, almost every day. It helps us really produce the program. We're able to do three community concerts, which are free and open to the public, give our students and their families exposure to the music, and also be able to invite the community members to experience the program as well," said Sarah Frederick, vice president of advancement for 18 Degrees.

Arts and Recovery for Youth, a suicide prevention program for youth using the arts, received $2,000 to help expand its programs and partner with other organizations.

"We were working towards expanding our programming and working with more local organizers, adding elements to our current programming, including an alumni group," said Jack Kelly, program manager for AIRY. 

"We were able to establish local partnerships with [the Community Behavioral Health Centers] of the Brien Center in Pittsfield and Optimal Healing in North Adams, to have real partnerships where they were able to be trained and launch arts-based suicide prevention programming using the AIRY model through their organizations." 

Nonprofit Latinas413 received $1,000 to start a sewing program. Latinas413 advocates for Latina representation in Berkshire County. 

"We bought the equipment, which was big, to start the sewing session. We didn't have any sewing machines before that, so we got equipment. We got materials. Now we have extra fabric that the instructor shared with us," said Lilliana Atanacio, interim treasurer. 

For the FY2026 grant funding, the council has $50,266 to allocate. The application period for 2026 started on Sept. 2 and ends Oct. 16. Apply for a grant here.

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