Citi Performing Arts Center Receives $100,000 from Cummings Foundation

Citi Performing Arts Center announced today that it is one of 100 local nonprofits to receive a grant of $100,000 through Cummings Foundation's "$100K for 100" program. The grant will support Citi Center's arts education programming over the next four years. Citi Center was chosen from a total of 479 applicants during a competitive review process.

The Education Department at Citi Performing Arts Center was founded in 1988, and since then, its education and community outreach programs have reached more than 300,000 children, teens, families, and educators, along with hundreds of neighborhood organizations. These free programs provide enhanced opportunities for children, teens, adults, families, schools, community organizations, and artists to share and experience the power of the arts in their daily lives. Some of the Center's key arts education initiatives include City Spotlights Leadership Program-which doubled in size in 2015-, City Spotlights Teen Leadership Council, Target Arts in School Residency Program, Interactive Readings: Stories Alive, and Ticket Access.

Representing Citi Performing Arts Center, Josiah A. Spaulding, Jr., President & CEO, joined approximately 300 other guests at a June 9 reception at TradeCenter 128 in Woburn to celebrate the $10 million infusion into Greater Boston's nonprofit sector. With the conclusion of this grant cycle, Cummings Foundation has now awarded more than $140 million to local nonprofits alone.

"Our arts education initiatives are a core component of our nonprofit mission, and we are thrilled to receive this significant grant from the Cummings Foundation," said Josiah A. Spaulding, Jr., President & CEO of Citi Performing Arts Center. "These critically important dollars will support all of our current education programming, including our City Spotlights summer employment program that teaches teens 21st Century job skills through the arts and our Target Arts residency program that brings arts education into Boston schools, as well as future program expansions."

The $100K for 100 program supports nonprofits that are not only based in but also primarily serve Middlesex, Essex, and Suffolk counties. This year, the program is benefiting 41 different cities and towns within the Commonwealth.

Through this place-based initiative, Cummings Foundation aims to give back in the area where it owns commercial buildings, all of which are managed, at no cost to the Foundation, by its affiliate Cummings Properties. Founded in 1970 by Bill Cummings of Winchester, the Woburn-based commercial real estate firm leases and manages more than 10 million square feet of space, the majority of which exclusively benefits the Foundation.

"We admire and very much appreciate the important work that nonprofit organizations like Citi Performing Arts Center are doing in the local communities where our colleagues and clients live and work," said Joel Swets, Cummings Foundation's executive director. "We are delighted to support their efforts."

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