The arts can be a powerful vehicle to connect people in a community and open the doors for understanding and dialogue. Fostering the power of the arts, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) recently awarded a $10,000 Challenge America grant to Montgomery County Community College’s (MCCC) Lively Arts Series to host a civic arts initiative.

MCCC’s project will feature David Gonzalez’s performance, “Finding North”–a one-person show created from research and oral histories about the sacrifices and dreams of the African-American Underground Railroad hero John P. Parker, as well as contemporary American immigrants. By sharing these personal experiences, “Finding North” helps to reconstruct the discussion around immigration.

In addition to the performance, Gonzalez, who is a professional storyteller, poet, playwright, musician and public speaker, will host a six-week artist-in-residency program at the Eisenhower Science & Technology Leadership Academy, the ACLAMO Family Center and at a senior center in Norristown.

Working with Gonzalez, Eisenhower students will interview Norristown area residents and create a set of monologues and a suite of poems called “Finding Comunidad: An Inter-generational Storytelling of Norristown.” The participants and Gonzalez will perform the final production at MCCC in December of 2018.

“For more than 30 years, MCCC has been hosting renowned performing artists and fostering these types of events to further critical conversations,” said Brent Woods, Senior Director of Cultural Affairs at MCCC. “As part of our work, we frequently bring the arts to the youth in the community through performances and workshops, and we are grateful to receive this generous grant from NEA to expand and continue our work.”

Each year, more than 4,500 communities large and small throughout the United States benefit from NEA’s grants to nonprofits. In 2018, NEA has awarded more than $25 million in grants across all artistic disciplines to nonprofit organizations in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. These grants are for specific projects and range from performances and exhibitions, to healing arts and arts education programs, to festivals and artist residencies.