BIPOC artists receive grants from Community Foundation
The Community Center for Greater New Haven, in collaboration with the New Haven Arts Council, elected 13 new recipients for Racial Equity and Creative Healing, or REACH, through the Arts grant.

Courtesy of Lucy Gellman
At the beginning of September, the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and the New Haven Arts Council announced the list of 13 locally-led projects that will be receiving their Racial Equity and Creative Healing through the Arts grants.
This year’s awardees were selected out of a pool of 81 total applications. The goal of the REACH grants is to fund more projects by local creatives, specifically artists of color, in an effort to contribute to New Haven’s cultural growth and healing.
“The arts are very important to New Haven, the arts are very important to all communities,” Jackie Downing, director of Grantmaking and Nonprofit Support at the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, told the News. “They are a universal way for people to connect and communicate … We’ve been through so much trauma and the arts are that outlet for people to be able to experience a little bit of escape from what’s been going on in their lives, and allow them to creatively think through the traumas they deal with.”
Project leaders may apply for up to two years of funding. As the REACH Grant enters its second year since its inception in 2021, there are currently 30 total creative projects being supported by the Community Foundation and the Arts Council — the first cohort consisted of 17 awardees.
The application process is simple and accessible, said Megan Manton, director of the New Haven Arts Council. Applicants must give an outline of their project and their goals for its community impact, as well as a plan for how they would utilize the grant funds. The application instructions are available in both English and Spanish for the convenience of the creatives.
Additionally, the REACH grant is available to individual artists and collectives, not only to arts nonprofits. Manton said that this allows the grant to be accessible to any creative who wants to make a difference in New Haven, not just organizations with 501C3 status.
“The committee was really wanting to fund individual artists, creatives and nonprofit arts organizations that wouldn’t necessarily get funding elsewhere,” Manton told the News when asked about applicant specifics. “We are accessible to projects that are really exciting but that may not have access to other resources. We’re really excited that there’s such diverse mediums in the projects.”
The projects selected for the grant this year have focuses ranging from connecting with nature and grassroots organizing to self care and cultural expression. Many grant recipients said that their focus was to unite the New Haven community for the betterment of the city through creative expression.
“In a city with so many problems that spends so much money on projects that don’t fully benefit our community, it’s important to fund something as fundamental as art,” John Lugo, co-founder of Unidad Latina en Acción and organizer of the Día de los Muertos Parade, told the News. “Art gives our community a soul. When we applied for the grant, we figured if we’ve been contributing to New Haven’s culture for so many years, why not get compensated for it by the city we’re contributing to?”
Lugo’s project, the Día de los Muertos Parade, is going into its 12th year running and focuses on unifying Latino communities around the city to celebrate their culture. In the past, Lugo said, the parade has been both a means of expression and a way for marginalized communities to send messages to the New Haven government. With over 1000 people involved in the production of the parade each year, the event includes performances, food, art and, most importantly, celebrations of life. This year, the parade will be hosted in Fair Haven on Nov. 5.
Another REACH grant recipient, Wine Down CT, is using their creativity to bring lively events to New Haven, with a focus on empowering the BIPOC community and fostering connections.
“Right now, New Haven is in a sort of Renaissance” noted Loren Jefferson, one of the co-creators of the project. “Because of the pandemic, a lot of new people have come to New Haven from larger cities, so the culture is shifting. Because we notice these changes, we hope to create something new that sparks more creative events, more community, all while highlighting the uniqueness of New Haven.”
Wine Down CT creates inclusive events targeted to people over 25 in the New Haven area, specifically BIPOC and LGBTQ+ community members. Employing almost a fully New Haven and Connecticut-based staff, Wine Down showcases art and talent from right in the community, inviting guests to get involved in the New Haven art scene.
Additionally, each event has a different theme and is hosted in a different space around the city, which Jefferson hopes will build unique experiences that “foster love and joy in all attendees.”
“New Haven has such a rich culture in the arts and there’s so many people here that are doing next level work, whether it’s through activism or through being creators or freelancers,” said Thelma Haida, the other co-creator of Wine Down CT. “Bringing all of these people together in one space so that they build connections with each other and build other things is awesome.”
Besides cultural events and parades, many of the REACH Grant recipient projects focus on healing. One of these, the Najua Sol Flow Garden, was founded recently by Tiffany Fomby ’19, with the intention of supporting Black women.
The Flow Garden hosts different local artists in residency, allowing them to create in the natural space. They also host workshops where community members can come in and learn about the uses of herbs and practice wellness techniques like meditation, mindfulness and sound healing.
In collaboration with The Shack, a New Haven community center, the Najua Sol Flow Garden brings wellness back into the hands of the community, Fomby said. Their intention is to listen to the needs of the people they serve, providing tools for healing that they will benefit from.
“I hope that people take away that there’s always space for people to ground and connect with themselves and that, especially when it comes to Black women, that there’s space for us to release, to be, to connect with what makes us feel balanced and connected to each other and the Earth,” Fomby told the News.
The Arts Council of Greater New Haven has been supporting artists in the city since 1964.
Mia Cortés Castro | mia.cortescastro@yale.edu
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