The Rock Island-based Midwest Writing Center is proud to announce receiving a $10,000 emergency operations grant from the national Poetry Foundation. These funds will be used to create and maintain accessible programming throughout the Covid pandemic.

Midwest Writing Center Receives $10,000 Emergency Poetry Grant

The Rock Island-based Midwest Writing Center has received a $10,000 grant from the Poetry Foundation.

The Poetry Foundation opened an emergency grant program to support poetry and affiliated art organizations struggling during the pandemic, as an extension of its commitment to community in June 2020. The Foundation committed $1 million in emergency grants over two years at that time, and can now report this has doubled to $2 million in emergency funds distributed within one year.

The emergency grants were open to poetry organizations and organizations that use poetry as an expression of their missions, located in the United States. This included organizations fighting for social justice and working to advance racial equity in

poetry and affiliated art.

A total of 128 organizations nationwide received emergency grant funding from the Poetry Foundation from the emergency grant opportunity.

Sarah Elgatian, MWC marketing and program specialist, said they’ll use their funding “to supplement our programming so that we can continue to do our work in a hybrid and online format and we’ll be able to add some more poetry-focused programming in the near future (but we can’t announce details yet).

“The grant is for operations, which will allow us to keep working the extra hours required of staff to make Covid-proof, accessible programming,” she said by e-mail this week. “We’re super excited.”

For more information on the center, visit www.mwcqc.org.

Midwest Writing Center Receives $10,000 Emergency Poetry Grant
Jonathan Turner has been covering the Quad-Cities arts scene for 25 years, first as a reporter with the Dispatch and Rock Island Argus, and then as a reporter with the Quad City Times. Jonathan is also an accomplished actor and musician who has been seen frequently on local theater stages, including the Bucktown Revue and Black Box Theatre.
Midwest Writing Center Receives $10,000 Emergency Poetry Grant

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