PBS Elections and Civics Grant

Posted by: Paula Garcia | Written by: PBS Station Services 2024 Summer Intern, Emily Blumberg
September 17, 2024

We’re thrilled to announce the member stations receiving grants from our Elections and Civics: Station Engagement RFP! After reviewing the impressive work of stations nationwide, PBS chose 13 grant recipients to foster community dialogue and highlight stories of local changemakers.

In the midst of a presidential election year, these grants foster connections between national content and local station efforts, to pro

vide communities with a diverse range of perspectives and knowledge. Throughout the following 10 months, grantees will develop and produce content, community engagement programming, and educational experiences that emphasize the importance of creative expression as a means of civic engagement.

Arizona Public Media Connecticut Public Broadcasting KEET KET Mountain Lake PBS Nashville PBS WVIA PBS Fort Wayne WFSU WNED WQED WTCI PBS WUCF

The Culture and Community Civics Kits offer teachers engaging civic lessons using the TWAM Tallahassee Bicentennial video series. Featuring a variety of artistic performances, these videos will be paired with PBS content and hands-on activities to deepen understanding of how local history and culture shape society. The kit promotes civic knowledge, respect for diversity, and active participation, fostering informed and engaged citizens. Kits will contain print copies of plays, recipes, and books to further the topics. Teachers can easily check out the kits to incorporate in their classroom.

Connecting classrooms, educators, and/or students to important civic engagement concepts through professional development workshops for teachers across various grade bands from PreK-12, lesson plans or other classroom content to support learning at school and/or at home, internships or other experiences designed for students, family field trips, etc., that explore the use of creative expression. We have loads of creative expressing throughout our Civics Resource Kits: Quill Pen writing, parchment paper history and hands-on samples, seals with wax and document security, African instruments and overall musical mixtures with art project incorporating Native, African, and Colonial materials to create something new, recipe for Tallahassee teacakes, and decorating a 19th c fan, plus games and pastimes of the 19th century including embroidery, soap making, house building, and more! All of these activities brought people together. Everything was handmade so you needed a wide network of crafts and craftspeople to achieve or create anything. These relationships, just like ours today, shape our democracy and how we rely on one another for information and basing our decisions on. An informed community that has access to truthful information can share and pass it along well. It takes a village of communication and trust to create a strong elected representatives.