Oct 21, 2021

Today, Oct. 21, has been designated by the National Endowment for the Arts to be a day to focus on health and wellness in the arts as we celebrate National Arts and Humanities Month. We thought it would be a good idea to highlight an important grant program, the Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grant, administered by the New York Foundation for the Arts. This program provides one-time grants of up to $5,000 for recent unexpected medical, dental, and mental health emergencies to artists in financial need who are practicing in the visual arts, film/video/electronic/digital arts, and choreography. One of our Kentucky Crafted artists, Deb Chenault, received one of these grants and talked with us about what it meant for her, and why artists in Kentucky who need help paying for necessary medical treatment should give this grant a look. Also along for the interview is Mollie Quinlan-Hayes, who administers the grant program for NYFA, and who has valuable information on how to navigate the application process. The next cycle of these grants opens on Nov. 1.

Episode footnotes:

• Mollie Quinlan-Hayes email address - emergencyfunds@nyfa.org
• Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grants information. 
• Grant FAQs 
• If you don't quality for a Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grant, the New York Foundation for the Arts maintains a list of other emergency grants for artists
• Deb Chenault's Kentucky Crafted directory page