Montgomery County Council For The Arts, Inc.

Montgomery County Council For The Arts, Inc., operating as the Gateway Regional Arts Center (GRAC), is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization based in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, that receives federal grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts to support public history initiatives, arts programming, and cultural education in Eastern Kentucky. The organization acts as a prime grant recipient (71% of recent awards) and as a sub-recipient on complementary arts-education grants, with no federal contract work in its portfolio.

GRAC's customer base is concentrated among two federal humanities and arts agencies. The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities together account for 71% of awards (coverage figure). NEA has funded three project grants since 2024, including support for the Affrilachia Festival (a series of performances and workshops on Black Appalachian contributions to music, foodways, dance, and crafts; award date June 1, 2024; completion July 31, 2026), an original play celebrating confectioner Ruth Hunt (award date January 1, 2025; completion December 31, 2025), and arts programming focused on the U.S. Constitution (award date January 1, 2026; completion December 31, 2026). NEH has funded two project grants: a $70,000 award (April 1, 2026) for "Kentucky's Revolution: Life on the American Frontier," a major public history initiative commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, delivered through a regional traveling exhibit, humanities lecture series, living history events, curriculum kits for K–12 educators, a virtual exhibit, and a community forum; and a strategic planning initiative titled "Out of the Ashes" (April 1, 2025; completion July 31, 2026) to research and interpret Black history narratives in Mt. Sterling. GRAC also receives sub-grants, including the Shakespeare in American Communities Apprenticeships grant (May 27, 2026) and the ArtsHERE grant (August 1, 2024) supporting its Making Space Initiative for cultural competency training and community research.

Total obligations across all seven awards, prime and sub, stand at $244 thousand, with three awards facing completion inside the next twenty-four months. Activity has remained modest but consistent: two awards in 2024, two in 2025, and three in 2026 to date. GRAC's mission centers on fostering creativity, community engagement, and cultural exchange through programming that serves underrepresented communities in Eastern Kentucky, with a recent emphasis on Black history, frontier history, and contemporary arts education.