Art Brings Community Together

The Northern New Jersey Community Foundation (NNJCF) awarded a grant of $1,100 to the Dr. John Grieco Scholarship Fund at the Academies@Englewood for the fourteenth annual Englewood Idol talent competition. The grant award provides $100 scholarships for each contestant to record one song and the entire group to collaborate and record two songs together on a professionally developed CD in a studio.

Collaboration Builds Communities

The grant award complements the Foundation’s mission to build stronger communities through collaboration. For 21 years, the Northern New Jersey Community Foundation has served the region by asking, What can we do together that we can't do alone?. The NNJCF is a leader in creative placemaking, the practice of integrating arts and culture into the fabric of a region, town, or city block in the region.

As a co-founder of the Englewood Idol competition in 2005, NNJCF supports the student-run talent competition, as a way to raise funds for The John Grieco Scholarship Fund and to bring together Englewood's public and private high school students through the arts. "Our initial effort to provide an opportunity for students from the three diverse high schools in Englewood to work together on an arts production grew into an exemplary demonstration of how art brings together everyone in a community. The arts provide a universal language that we all speak," said Michael Shannon, President, NNJCF.

2019 Competition Expands

The Englewood Idol competition is open to any high school student living or attending high school in Englewood, New Jersey. For the first time, the program also features one student from grades 6-8 'The Junior Idol', grades 4-5 'The Mini Idol', and grades 2-3 'The Micro Idol'.

The 2019 Englewood Idol takes place on Friday, January 11 at 7:00 p.m. at the Bergen Performing Arts Center (bergenPAC), located at 30 North Van Brunt Street in Englewood, New Jersey. This year, the talent competition attracts students from several municipalities, including Englewood, Bergenfield, and Dumont in northern New Jersey and Nyack and New York City, in New York. Students attend Dwight Morrow High School, Academies@Englewood, Dwight Englewood or Eagle Academy.

Tickets to Englewood Idol are available for purchase at the main offices of Dwight Morrow High School and the Academies@Englewood, and Janis E. Dismus Middle School and the Bergen Performing Arts Center. For further information, call 201-294-0725, email jaronson@epsd.org, or visit the student-created website.

For more information about the Northern New Jersey Community Foundation, visit the organization's website, send an email to nnjcf@nnjcf.org, or call (201) 568-5608. For updates about events, opportunities, and news, follow the NNJCF on Facebook and Twitter.