Sturgeon River Pottery Fund for Education in the Visual Arts

The Sturgeon River Pottery Fund for Education in the Visual Arts was established in 1999 by local residents Steve and Karen Andrews in honor of their 25th wedding anniversary. The fund is named for Sturgeon River Pottery, a pottery studio and art shop on Charlevoix Avenue in Petoskey that the Andrews founded. The fund reflects their support for visual arts and the local community that supported Sturgeon River Pottery. The grant opportunity is administered through the Petoskey-Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation. According to the source, nearly $27,000 has been awarded to area schools through the fund to support creative expression among youth. The purpose of the Sturgeon River Pottery Fund for Education in the Visual Arts is to provide funding to elementary, middle, and high school art teachers for the purchase of visual art supplies for their classrooms. Eligible applicants are K-12 art teachers based at schools in Emmet County, Michigan, or Wolverine, Michigan. The fund is specifically intended for students in kindergarten through grade 12 and is not intended to support preschool art supplies. Teachers seeking support for preschool children are directed to contact the Community Foundation to discuss other possible funding opportunities. Grant requests must be $250 or less. The art supplies purchased with grant funding must be used with students in grades K-12 during the current school year and must pertain to visual art projects. The source provides examples of qualifying visual art activities, including ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, crafts, photography, and animation. The source does not identify a minimum grant request, a total amount available for the current grant cycle, a specific number of awards, or a required matching contribution. Applicants must submit their requests before the project occurs. The Community Foundation specifically states that it does not reimburse supply costs for art projects that have already occurred. Accordingly, applicants should plan their visual art projects and submit requests before purchasing supplies for a completed project or otherwise incurring costs for an art project that has already taken place. The source does not provide additional restrictions concerning indirect costs, subawards, or a formal period of performance beyond requiring that supplies be used with K-12 students during the current school year. Applications are submitted through the grant application link provided by the Community Foundation. The source states that applications are due by Friday, October 10th. No separate letter of intent, concept paper, pre-proposal, notice of intent, or other pre-application gating requirement is identified. The source also does not state an application opening date, award notification date, formal evaluation criteria, review schedule, or award period. Although the webpage identifies October 10th as the deadline, it does not explicitly state that the opportunity recurs annually or at another regular frequency. Questions about the Sturgeon River Pottery grant may be directed to the Community Foundation grants team at grants@phsacf.org or by telephone at 231-348-5820. The source provides a general grant portal and instructs applicants to use the application link to apply. Applicants should ensure that their request is no more than $250, is for visual art supplies associated with K-12 students in an eligible school location, relates to a visual art project, and is submitted before the project takes place. No named individual grant contact, application question list, required attachment list, scoring criteria, or previous recipient organizations are provided in the source.