Next year's Healdsburg Jazz Festival, which was canceled and then reinstated earlier this year, got good news this week, with the announcement of a $10,000 grant for the National Endowment for the Arts.
The NEA Challenge America Fast Track grant will help support a live outdoor Latin jazz concert at Recreation Park in Healdsburg during next summer's festival, said Jessica Felix, artistic director of the Healdsburg Jazz Festival.
"It's a large compliment to our festival, and it's definitely going to be a big help," Felix said of the grant.
The grant was one of 1,057 awarded to nonprofit organizations across the United States. The NEA announced awards totaling almost $27 million this week for Challenge America Fast Track and two other grant programs.
In late July, the festival board announced it was eliminating Felix's position and putting the festival on hiatus because the event had operated at a deficit of for the past three years.
After protests from jazz fans all over Northern California and jazz musicians all over the country, the board reinstated both Felix and the festival, then resigned en masse. Since then, Felix has recruited a new board and advisory council and started a fund drive, she said.
After last June's festival, the organization was left with a deficit of $30,000. Next year's projected budget for the event is $300,000.
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