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Arts Commission News

Mississippi Arts Commission announces

Building Fund for the Arts

DATE:              September 26 , 2006

CONTACT:     Susan Dobbs, Public Relations Director                                       601-359-6031 or sdobbs@arts.state.ms.us

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

JACKSON—Since the inception of the Building Fund for the Arts (BFA) Initiative in 2001, the Mississippi Arts Commission has distributed $16 million to 49 Mississippi communities to renovate and repair buildings such as old movie theatres, banks, storefronts and old school auditoriums to be reopened as community and performing art centers.  In 2005, over $2 million was awarded to projects in 13 Mississippi communities.

The MAC is currently taking applications for the BFA initiative, which will award approximately $2 million across the state to support the building of new arts related facilities as well as the refurbishment of existing ones. Established by the state legislature, BFA is made possible by general obligation bonds and is designed to give the arts a stronger presence in Mississippi.

“The BFA is perhaps the most popular, visible and far reaching grant administered by the Mississippi Arts Commission,” said Malcolm White, Executive Director.  “A quote by Winston Churchill holds true for the BFA, ‘we shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.’  The purpose of the BFA is to encourage creative development and to give a physical address to the arts all across Mississippi.”

The Letter of Intent to apply for BFA funding is due by November 1, 2006 and the application deadline is November 14, 2006.  BFA guidelines are available on the Commission’s website at www.arts.state.ms.us or by contacting MAC’s Director of Grants and Special Initiatives Judi Cleary, 601-359-6034.

The Mississippi Arts Commission is a state agency, funded by the Mississippi legislature, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Wallace Foundation and other public and private sources.

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