ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Funding for the arts tends to end up on the chopping block, but Orange County commissioners votes to continue the investment through a grant program.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Orange County commissioners approved a $5.16 million grant for arts and culture groups
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39 organizations will receive the money, up to $190,000
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The grant is funded through the Tourist Development Tax and given to groups who bring tourists into Orange County<\/p>\n
This week, commissioners approved a $5.16 million (exact number $5,164,747) grant funded through the Tourist Development Tax (TDT) for arts and culture groups in the county.<\/p>\n
Vicki Landon, an administrator with the county\u2019s Arts and Cultural Affairs office, said last year they distributed $4.6 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrange County really continues to be a leader in public funding for the arts at a time when other public funding sources are really uncertain,\u201d said Landon.<\/p>\n
Thirty-nine groups will receive a piece of the funding, up to $190,000. Since the money comes from the TDT, it is awarded to organizations who generate tourism through art.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrange County\u2019s investment of about $5.1 million of TDT is going to generate over $120 million of economic impact in the county and support over 2,000 full time jobs,\u201d Landon said.<\/p>\n
New Generation Theatrical and Florida Symphony Youth Orchestras (FSYO) are both first-time recipients of the grant. They are receiving $55,000 each.<\/p>\n
Creative Director of New Generation Theatrical Michael Knight said the group plans to use the money for marketing, renovations and paying local actors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can bring people in for an experience, that would be amazing. So this cultural tourism grant, this grant of money that would help us grow that audience and provide a service for those people coming in to do tourism in Orlando, we wanted to seize upon that,\u201d said Knight.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, FSYO executive director Abigail Tran explained they previously planned on applying and made sure to track their requirements.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took the application from that year and we started implementing more protocols and feedback surveys and gathering data points from our current audience base to get us ready for the next application cycle,\u201d said Tran.<\/p>\n
FSYO staff says it plans to use its grant to fund concerts and expand marketing, because they have students from nine counties participate in their ensembles.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey come to concerts, they bring their families, they bring their family members from out of town, grandparents, aunts, uncles, all of that to come to central Florida. They\u2019ll stay in the hotels and they\u2019ll eat dinner after our concerts and make a whole weekend out of it,\u201d said development coordinator Cameron Frye.<\/p>\n
Landon said the rigor of the application increases with the amount of money that each group requests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Funding for the arts tends to end up on the chopping block, but Orange County commissioners…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[274,1015,115,1335,139,141,140,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-27121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-app-top-stories","9":"tag-emma-delamo","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-orange-county","12":"tag-orlando","13":"tag-orlando-headlines","14":"tag-orlando-news","15":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}