Indie Grits film festival to expand in 2018 thanks to local grant

Columbia’s popular Indie Grits film festival will expand to north Columbia next year, thanks to a local foundation that is giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund a dozen community projects across the Midlands this year.

The Central Carolina Community Foundation is giving $448,500 to fund nonprofits’ projects ranging from Indie Grits’ expansion to a traveling children’s theater show to an art series exploring women’s contributions to American society.

This is the third year the foundation has awarded its Connected Communities grants.

“Our real goal is to connect people to the Midlands to say, ‘I love where I live. I want to be here, and I want to make this a better place,” said Erin Johnson, the foundation’s vice president for community investment.

Thanks to its grant, Indie Grits – hosted by Main Street’s Nickelodeon Theatre – will expand its programming venues across north Columbia for next year’s festival, themed “Two Cities.”

Other projects benefiting from Connected Communities grants are:

▪ Columbia Children’s Theatre’s “Flatbed Truck Theatre” series

▪ Columbia Museum of Art’s “We Speak: Celebrating Women in the Arts” year-long exhibition series

▪ FoodShare’s community kitchen in a public housing neighborhood

▪ Friends of Lexington Main Library’s summer reading program

▪ Historic Columbia’s Hampton-Preston garden rehabilitation

▪ Orangeburg County Fine Arts Center’s renovation

▪ Palmetto Luna Arts’ “Latino Arts in Motion” initiative

▪ South Carolina Philharmonic’s “Conduct the Phil” pop-up, interactive shows

▪ Sumter County Museum’s Temple Sinai Jewish History Museum

▪ Vista Neighborhood Association’s local art wraps around utility boxes

▪ Women’s Rights and Empowerment Network’s “Seen and Heard: Women and Girls in the Midlands” community conversations

This story was originally published June 3, 2017 at 1:56 PM with the headline "Indie Grits film festival to expand in 2018 thanks to local grant."