Emily Jones, university archivist (left); Whitney Cummins, BPAC Arts Education coordinator; and Laura Howell, BPAC executive director, recently attended the 2014 KDS grant presentation ceremony on behalf of Delta State University.The King’s Daughters and Sons Circle Number Two (KDS) recently presented grant awards to the Janice Wyatt Mississippi Summer Arts Institute (MSAI) and the Charles W. Capps Archives and Museum at a reception and presentation at the Greenville Higher Education Center.
KDS, based in Greenville, has served the Delta since 1895. The foundation has given more than $2,000,000, making it one of the largest contributors to charitable projects and programs in the Mississippi Delta.
MSAI was established in 1998 at Delta State University’s BPAC to provide summer enrichment and arts education opportunities to school-age children from the Delta and across the state of Mississippi. The camp offers opportunities in dance, theater, visual arts, music, and the literary arts for children ages 5-18. The goal of the institute is to encourage promising artists to begin or continue their pursuit in the arts.
MSAI is a proud recipient of the Leila Clark Wynn award. This grant will provide scholarships to Core Arts, a two-week residential camp occurring in June 2015 for young artists ages 12-18. Core Arts provides a positive and supportive environment for artists who wish to gain exposure to the arts or aim to further develop their creative abilities.
“We are very appreciative of the support provided by the King’s Daughters and Sons Circle Number Two,” said Whitney Cummins, BPAC Arts Education coordinator. “Through this generous grant, we will be able to offer financial assistance to several young artists from across Mississippi who wish to attend our summer institute. MSAI is extremely grateful for the King’s Daughters and Sons’ commitment to arts education and enrichment in the Delta.”
The University Archives & Museum applied for the KDS grant to support and reinforce its commitment to Delta State’s Quality Enhancement Program of Improving Cultural Competency. Through the grant, Archives is able to connect the Delta’s rich cultural collections back to the public.
“We spend countless hours visiting in communities and with individuals learning about their personal histories, collecting those histories and processing collections for researchers and community users,” said Emily Jones, university archivist. “Through this grant, the Archives will be able to open those collections up even further, giving back to the communities who created them by streamlining the collection management access system we have purchased for the collections the university holds.”
This grant provides a stipend for a part-time assistant who will work with Past Perfect software collections management system, entering collection data into the system allowing collections to be term-searchable and easier to access.
The online component of this grant will be presented through the Mississippi Digital Library portal found here: http://www.msdiglib.org/cdm4/collections.php.
Significant behind-the-scenes work goes into preparing a collection to be accessible online and the University Archives & Museum is sincerely thankful for the KDS support.
“I wish everyone could hear the stories of how collections come to life with the University Archives — to know the people and events described within the letters and photographs in the boxes of materials we hold,” said Jones. “The next best thing to having me visit with every person in the Delta and walk them through our collections is to provide the public access to these materials through our online portals. King’s Daughters and Sons Circle Number Two is making this possible for us.”
