Maintain and increase cultural expression by preserving and strengthening the means of producing events and exhibits featuring arts, heritage and humanities, and by increasing public access to and public participation in those events and exhibits in Hood River County.
The State Cultural Trust was established by funding legislation in 2001. It is funded primarily by citizen contributions. It disperses part of these funds to County and Tribe Cultural Coalitions for them to fund local, culturally significant projects. To qualify to receive these funds a Planning Committee of interested citizens began meeting in 2002 to develop a County Cultural Plan. This group first created and distributed a county-wide cultural assessment and inventory to assess what county citizens thought would be the best use of those funds. From that information the group created the Plan and submitted it to the State office for approval. Upon receiving that approval in 2004 the Committee formed the Hood River Cultural Coalition, which became charged with dispersing those funds. The Coalition is governed by By Laws and its membership is open to any interested citizen. There are always between five and nine members and they are chosen so that there are advocates of each of the targeted cultural areas the arts, the humanities and heritage.
The availability of grant funds is advertised by press releases to local media and by postings on the Coalition’s website — hoodriverculturaltrust.org. The first grants were made in the spring of 2005 and have been made annually since then. The amount of money available annually for our grants has varied between $5,000 and $10,000.