17 projects in 10 counties receive funding, many focused on showcasing untold local stories
(Camden, NJ) – The New Jersey Council for the Humanities (NJCH) has awarded 17 grants totaling $205,716 in its most recent grant round. These funds will support a diverse array of projects in 10 counties across the Garden State, highlighting NJCH’s ongoing efforts to make the vital work of the humanities available to all New Jerseyans.
“Public humanities work can encompass a broad range of activities, but at their core, each of these projects helps tell the story of who we are as people,” said Carin Berkowitz, Ph.D., executive director of NJCH. “Some of that story involves well-known figures and places of the past. Much of it has been hidden from public view within our own local communities. And still more is being added to that story each day.”
A number of the awarded projects received initial funding or development resources through prior involvement with NJCH.
- The Willingboro Community Development Corporation’s historical investigation into the township’s “Futuro House” began as a project within NJCH’s Community History Program.
- The Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice’s Queer History Physical & Virtual Archive previously received an NJCH Incubation Grant.
- CavanKerry Press previously received an NJCH COVID-19 Response Grant.
- Ritual4Return’s humanities-based theater program for citizens returning from incarceration was implemented in Newark with the support of an NJCH grant and was the recipient of NJCH’s 2024 Stanley N. Katz Prize for Excellence in Public Humanities.
All awarded projects are listed below. For more information on the grant recipients and their projects, please visit njhumanities.org/grantees-2025-r1.
Incubation Grants support the planning and development of public humanities projects:
- Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions ($9,921): To support “Capturing Stormwater Stories in the City of Camden,” encompassing individuals’ oral accounts of environmental impacts.
- CavanKerry Press ($7,000): To support the Poetry Heals Program, a series of literary workshops for physicians/clinicians in hospitals and students in medical schools designed to build empathy and understanding.
- Passaic County Department of Cultural & Historic Affairs ($15,000): To support the exhibit “Expanding the Narrative: Indigenous Peoples in Passaic County.”
- Preservation New Jersey ($15,000): To support the creation of educational workshops involving the public in efforts to preserve cemeteries and burial grounds in the state.
- Monmouth Museum ($10,000): To support the new exhibit “The Lenape and Native Americans of New Jersey: Past and Present.”
- coLAB Arts, Inc. ($15,000): To support Shiv’s Project, an oral history archive and verbatim theater piece based on interviews with family, friends, and school officials who knew Shiv Kulkarni, a young boy in New Jersey, who took his own life.
- Stockton University ($15,000): To support research for a future exhibition on the use of poetry as a form of creative expression, public history, and activism in Southern NJ.
- 120 East State ($15,000): To support the creation of an interpretive plan for the historic First Presbyterian Church and Cemetery in Trenton.
- The Moving Architects ($6,325): To support “Be Still My Soul,” a site-immersive dance performance project built on the rich and complex history of the Montclair History Center’s Crane House and Historic YWCA.
Action Grants support the implementation or continuation of public humanities projects:
- Ritual4Return, Inc. ($15,000): To support two cohorts of a 12-week program through which returning citizens use humanities and theater techniques to process their incarceration and life experiences and take part in a re-welcoming to the community.
- Montclair Film Festival Inc. ($10,000): To support an after-school documentary filmmaking class for teens in Paterson, NJ.
- Piscataway Public Library ($13,750.00): To support “Food for Thought,” a community exhibit and event series exploring food and foodways.
- Newark History Society ($15,000): To support a weeklong series of events honoring Cudjo Banquante, an enslaved man who served as a soldier in the American Revolution and became Newark’s first documented Black businessman.
- Asbury Park African-American Music Project Inc. ($15,000): To support the expansion of “Curating and Sharing History from the Heart of Asbury Park’s African American Community” archive and oral history.
- Willingboro Community Development Corporation ($15,000): To support “Futuro House Chronicles: Bridging History, Architecture, and Community.”
- Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice ($10,000): To support the Bayard Rustin Queer History physical and virtual archive.
- Mahwah Museum ($4,000): To support a series of free programs and events.
