Grant winners include: 

• Church Mouse Ministries received $5,000 for a community garden in downtown Robbinsville that will serve as an outdoor classroom and resource for community development.
• Folkmoot received $8,000 for auditorium improvements to support year-round cultural programming at the Folkmoot Friendship Center in Waynesville.
• Friends of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park received $7,350 to rehabilitate a historic fishing cabin in the Cataloochee Valley area of the park.
• Junior Appalachian Musicians, Inc. received $10,000 to create videos and other resource materials that will give JAM students a deeper appreciation of the history and cultural context of the region’s music traditions.
• North Carolina Arboretum Society received $16,000 for outdoor interpretive exhibits at the Arboretum’s Willow Pond in Asheville celebrating wetlands and the region’s status as a world hotspot for salamander diversity.

Since its inception in 2003, the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area Partnership has awarded 173 grants totaling over $2.3 million and leveraging another $5.6 million in matching contributions from local governments and the private sector. These grants have funded projects in all 25 counties of Western North Carolina.