Princeton Area Community Foundation Awards Grants To 8 Nonprofits

PRINCETON, NJ — Eight nonprofits based out of Trenton recently received grants totaling $25,000 from Princeton Area Community Foundation (PACF).

The grants were awarded through PACF’s Trenton Arts Fund to make arts more accessible to the community. PACF is headquartered in Lawrenceville. This is the second and largest round of grants made by the Fund

“Our goal was to support emerging and established arts, culture and history organizations in Trenton as they reopen and emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic,” John Hatch, creator of the Trenton Arts Fund, said in a statement.

“We also wanted to support and recognize those organizations that focus on our young people in the city. The Trenton Arts Fund received many excellent applications, and we are thrilled to support these eight organizations that are doing extraordinary work in Trenton, bringing the arts to all corners of the city.”

Hatch created the fund back in 2018 along with his husband David Henderson. The seven-person grants committee includes members who live locally and have a background in the arts.

The committee reviewed and evaluated all applications and recommended funding eight finalists.

Grants were awarded to:

• Artworks Trenton to help rebuild youth and teen art education programming for the benefit of Trenton’s diverse communities
• Passage Theatre Company in Trenton to support in-school residency and production of “Junior High #2: The Hedgepeth-Williams Story”
• St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Trenton for artistic and mentoring personnel to develop and produce “The Sermon, a Pray on Words from 1770,” a live public presentation drawn from an original manuscript from 1770
• Trenton Children's Chorus for its satellite program: Choral Music at International Charter School of Trenton
• Trenton Circus Squad for its service-learning program
• Trenton Museum Society for the Trenton Forward: Youth and Arts Together program
• Trenton Music Makers for its Open Strings: Amplifying Youth Voice and Storytelling through Collective Composition program

A separate award was given to the James R Halsey Foundation of Arts in Hamilton which works primarily with Trenton students. The nonprofit teaches young people filmmaking while providing them with life skills training.