We’re Grateful for You…

Some years, it’s hard to come up with a list of what we’re thankful for when Thanksgiving rolls around. This is not one of those years. No need for the California Arts Council to cudgel its brain to come up with a positive spin…this year, the positive spin has been so intense, we’re downright dizzy with good news.

Are we grateful? You bet.

We’re grateful to Californians for the Arts, our State-Local Partners, the Ovation Foundation, and all the passionate citizens of our great state who went to bat for us this year at the Capitol. Thank you for making your voices heard.

And we’re grateful to the California state legislature, who heard those voices and responded. And to Governor Jerry Brown, who signed the bill that gave us a one-time boost of five million dollars. We promise to make you proud.

We’re grateful to more than twenty thousand Californians who donated to the Keep Arts in Schools Fund through their state tax forms. Thanks to you, more than $250,000 in donations will go directly to programs that put arts education in California schools—not a penny of your donation will be spent on our administrative costs or overhead. So we thank you, your kids’ teachers thank you, your local schools thank you, and we hope your kids thank you too.

We’re grateful to our tireless volunteers, the distinguished members of the California Arts Council. These wonderful folks are true public servants, who donate their über-valuable time, not to mention their clout, to advance California through the arts and creativity. (That’s our mission statement.)

We’re grateful to the smart, dedicated UC interns and volunteers who come to our offices in Sacramento day after day and help us make bricks from straw. Thanks to them, the bricks get made more-or-less on time and under budget.

We’re grateful to our fabulous grantees. Thank you for the brilliant art you make, the lives you touch, the spirits you awaken, the neighborhoods into which you breathe new life, the downtowns you revitalize, the people you hire and the people you inspire.

Thanks, everyone, for caring—for cheering us on—for “liking” our Facebook page, following us on Twitter, and reading our blog.

We are heading into 2015 with renewed hope, and it’s all thanks to you.