Gateway Community and Technical College is a recipient of a $12,100 grant to host the NEA Big Read in Northern Kentucky and the Greater Cincinnati area. A program of the National Endowment for the Arts, the NEA Big Read broadens our understanding of our world, our communities and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book.
Gateway Community and Technical College is one of 77 nonprofit organizations to receive a grant to host an NEA Big Read project between September 2016 and June 2017. The NEA Big Read will focus on Ernest Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying. Activities will take place starting September 8 (to coincide with International Literacy Day) and concluding November 18, 2017.
“The opportunity to partner with local libraries and organizations in an effort to get the broader community engaged in reading this classic novel is one for which we are truly grateful,” Kristen A. Smitherman, Grant Project Manager, Gateway Community and Technical College. “The Big Read grant provides the opportunity for Gateway and its partners to facilitate important and relevant discussions about key issues that impact our society.”
Gateway is partnering with a total of six county public libraries – Boone, Gallatin, Grant, Kenton, and Owen Counties in Kentucky and Hamilton County in Ohio – and dozens of colleges, community organizations, and media outlets in the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky region. Approximately 25 activities around the selected book title will take place during the fall of 2016 throughout the region.
Jane Chu, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, said, “I have the opportunity to travel around the country and see the way the arts can inspire, allow for reflection, and create new experiences. I look forward to the creative ways these 77 organizations will bring their communities together around a great work of literature through their participation in the NEA Big Read.”
Managed by Arts Midwest, the NEA Big Read offers grants to support innovative community reading programs designed around a single book. The program supports organizations across the country in developing community-wide reading programs which encourage reading and participation by diverse audiences. Organizations selected to participate in the NEA Big Read receive a grant, access to online training resources and opportunities, and educational and promotional materials designed to support widespread community involvement.
NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. For more information about the NEA Big Read, please visit neabigread.org.