2009.01.28
Grant moves Floyd artisans trail forward
Floyd's Jacksonville Center for the Arts, the Floyd Marketing Group and 'Round the Mountain have been awarded a grant to help fund the printing of artisan trail maps and brochures for a collaborative project designed to bring cultural tourists to the area.
The fund-matching grant from the Virginia Tourism Corporation, will fund $3,711 of the project, while the Jacksonville Center, Floyd Marketing Group and 'Round the Mountain raised $4,511, said Pat Sharkey, trail development coordinator for eastern counties.
The Floyd leg of the trail project is tentatively being called "Floyd's Mountain Breeze Ramble," and is part of 'Round the Mountain's larger artisan trail network project, which will develop trails that promote artisan studios, galleries, farms, agritourism sites and venues that support artisans in 19 counties and four cities, including Montgomery, Pulaski, Floyd and Giles counties and the city of Radford. Each locality will have its own artisan trail, which will be part of the larger regional trail. There will not be physical trails built, but rather more of a comprehensive directory of sites, Sharkey said.
The trail map/brochure is scheduled to be available by April or May 2009.
In Floyd County, there are currently about 30 individual businesses and studios that will be part of the trail.
Patrick County, Carroll County and the city of Galax have also been awarded funds recently to help fund their county's trail maps, Sharkey said.
"We're finally getting beyond the orientation stage and getting things moving," Sharkey said.
For more information, or to be included as a trail site or advertiser in Floyd’s Mountain Breeze Ramble Artisan Trail, contact Sharkey at 651-4819 or psharkey@roundthemountain.org or The Jacksonville Center for the Arts at 745-2784 or info@jacksonvillecenter.org.
--Amy Matzke-Fawcett
This is great and I was wondering if those involved with the fund raising efforts would help in raising funds for Radford City Schools considering they are going to cut funds for the arts, music, and physical education programs! It would be nice to see this happen in all areas of The New River Valley, yet I don't see that happeneing! Kudos to all that help in the fund raising of this trail in your area!
Comment by Bev Bishop — January 29, 2009 @ 12:36 pm
Bev,
The Jacksonville Center, which wrote the grant request for the trail brochure, has also obtained funding to implement in-school art programming for the Floyd County elementary schools for the past two years, recently worked with Floyd County High School students to show their work in the Hayloft Gallery, provides art education resources for home schooled youth and continues to seek funding for additional arts programming for local youth including those outside of Floyd County. Art programming for Floyd County school district students will likely be impacted by an $851K reduction in funding for this coming fiscal year.
Comment by John — February 7, 2009 @ 11:59 am
John, that is fantastic and I wish Radford City or the person/persons that is over the arts in Radford would do the same! When I opened up my studio in Radford on August 08 I was going to do many things until I seen for myself that there would not be any change in getting the community involved and that truly has taken much fight out of me as an artist! Only two out of the many artist in Radford has come to my studio and they are artist who do not show their work, sad to say! They much like me have been shunned back into their worlds of creating! When there is no community accepting of all peoples work then that community is truly not a community! Kudos again to all that has worked very hard...Sincerely, Bev Bishop
Comment by Bev Bishop — February 9, 2009 @ 11:22 am