BLUE PLUM ANNOUNCES GRANTS FOR COMMUNITY EVENTS

The Blue Plum Organization is excited to announce a new program for 2021 that will assist local businesses and organizations to bring music and arts to downtown Johnson City. Due to COVID restrictions, the organization is unable to host the festival this year, so they are offering grants for small scale community events to be held the month of June.

The mission of the organization is to invest in Downtown Johnson City through cultural experiences that create lifelong memories for today and tomorrow. The Blue Plum Festival has been the premiere music and arts festival in downtown for 19 years and plans to return as soon as possible. In the meantime, $20,000 has been set aside through the Blue Plum Gives Back program to support public programs, events and initiatives that stimulate art, music and culture in Downtown Johnson City.

The Blue Plum Gives Back program came about in 2020 as the organization was seeking ways to support arts in Downtown. The first project, was to co-sponsor a mural with Johnson City Public Art. This mural will be completed sometime in 2021. They also provided funding towards the Downtown Square Breezeway project.

“The Blue Plum Organization had really hoped to be able to bring the festival back this summer, but for a festival the size of ours, planning begins 9 months ahead of time,” says Jenny Lockmiller, Board President. “There were too many unknowns for the all-volunteer organization this winter, without knowing what the pandemic numbers would be in June. But the Gives Back program is a way that our board felt we could support downtown businesses and organizations and still provide arts and music to our community.”

The grant application opens February 25, with a deadline of March 25, and all events must be held in the month of June. Event organizers will need to submit a written proposal, a video and show how the activity relates to the Blue Plum mission. To download the application and for more information about Blue Plum and Blue Plum Gives Back, please visit: www.blueplum.org There is no application fee.