The New Jersey State Council on the Arts voted to award grants totaling $15,811,107 in state and federal funding. The awards announced today will support nearly 800 arts organizations, programs, projects and artists in every county across the state.

The Council's Fiscal Year 2012 awards were distributed through several grant programs including $13,983,608 in 196 matching grants to organizations and $1,800,802 in 28 co-sponsored initiatives that support state and regional partnerships which advance arts education, showcase New Jersey artists, increase access to the arts for people with disabilities, foster arts in community development and healthcare, and promote the arts statewide.

Twenty one of the matching grants, totaling $1,894,094, are awarded to County Arts Agencies for local arts development, which helps to support an additional 550 local arts organizations and projects statewide.

The Council also approved $26,697 in funding for 9 Folk Arts Apprenticeships which help sustain the traditional arts of New Jersey's many different cultural communities, and recommended up to $400,000 for as many as 15 stabilization project grants to the Cultural Trust board, pending availability of grant funds from the Trust's interest earnings.