Hennepin County will fund grants for youth music and arts program

Hennepin County Commissioner Kevin Anderson admits he wasn't drawn to sports as a child, instead finding an outlet in the arts.

With that experience in mind, he wondered if there was a way to reach out to underserved youth isolated during the pandemic with a music and arts initiative. For more than a decade, the county has awarded more than $29 million in youth sports grants for facility, small equipment and playground projects, and water safety programs. Adding grants for music and arts seemed liked an obvious expansion, he said.

The board recently approved $300,000 through 2025 for Encouraging Leaders, a north Minneapolis-based nonprofit that serves young people of color, to administer and develop the music and arts initiative. County officials are hoping the first round of grants will be awarded early next year.

The county can provide more opportunities to foster creativity and self-expression and raise cultural awareness and appreciation, Anderson said.

"The youth sports grants were already doing really great work giving access to programs and getting them out in the community," he said. "So we already have their bodies moving. Can we offer something for their minds?"

The timing of offering the possibility of music and arts programs is particularly important coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. He saw so much pent-up emotion in kids and wanted to provide opportunities to express themselves in a healthy way.

"Often arts programming is the first to get cut when schools are facing budget cuts," Anderson said.

The program will also fit in with the county's goal of reducing racial disparities, he said. While the grants are available for any city or group in the county, he expects many requests to come from underserved or lower income communities.

"The more we can keep youth busy with positive activities, there will be a downstream impact on public safety," he said. "I can see the ripple effects."

Encouraging Leaders, a Black-focused organization which was started in 2015, will work with the county to develop the program, generate and manage grant proposals and offer technical assistance to applicants. Like the youth sports grants, the board votes on approval.

The parameters of the music and arts grants has yet to be determined, said Yvonne Forsythe, the county's director of purchasing and contract services. The sports grants range from $10,000 to $300,000, the highest reserved for facility projects. Money from the Target Field sales tax support the program.

The county will now do outreach to cities and groups about the grant program, encouraging them to partner with non-profit organizations, she said. Some basic factors the county will consider when reviewing grant applications include financial need, number of youth that would be served and connection with the community, she said.

Encouraging Leaders has served more than 2,000 youths and has demonstrated a capability to perform grant administration work with local non-profits, Anderson said. It has done this through performance art programs, job placements, employment skill development, healthcare projects and support to find housing and mental health and substance abuse treatment.

"Since this is the first time we've done this, we want to be flexible with the kind of proposals we approve," Forsythe said. "We don't want to make a rigid line on how they should be. We to make work for the community. They will tell us what works best."