Who knows? Maybe the third time will be the charm.
Judging by the more than 100 in attendance, it looks like the odds may be pretty good that the newly formed Local Arts Agency, the Flagler County Cultural Council or FC3, may go the distance.
Arts groups have tried it before, but this time there’s structure. There’s guidance. There’s a little seed money. There’s buy in and data to support the effort. Of course there were some skeptics, the wait and see group, but there always is when a new venture is hoping to lift off. Usually they come around, and the inaugural members of FC3 are ready to welcome them with open arms.
It’s About the Kids …
It seems so cliché to say it, but when you talk to Ed Siarkowicz, secretary for the FC3 board, and he starts talking about education and preserving history for the kids, his face changes. A laser focused kind of guy, the softer side of him comes out and you know he means it.
Preserving history and creating educational experiences around the stories of the past is a passion for Siarkowicz as the president of the Flagler County Historical Society.
Chatting after the FC3’s first public interest and membership meeting on Tuesday at the African-American Cultural Center where Siarkowicz had delivered his part of the presentation – the vision statement, the mission statement and then a call to action – come join, using an inverted umbrella to drive home the point of capturing all arts, history and culture-related organizations in FC3, he was optimistic.
“Our resources are tremendously rich both in the visual arts and the performing arts – humanities, the history and everything else that has to do with culture,” he said.
“As the official local arts agency for Flagler County, as a supportive group, with everybody in the area that has anything to do with the arts, we are going to go after grants and funding that nobody else can go after unless you are an officially proclaimed local arts agency.”
Undaunted by the past, the board of directors reached out to past arts and culture leaders to determine what went wrong and to address potential pitfalls ahead.
“This time it’s going to be successful because the five members of our board have taken an oath not to be glory seekers. We are determined to have this organization function as a support network to help those that have been here for decades with money they would not normally have access to,” said Siarkowicz.
“We’ve spent a lot of time listening to how things have come down in the past. It takes a village and the image that the board has is how is it going to benefit the children that are coming up in this area,” he said, recalling the cultural blessings he experienced a youth.
“We had access to all the best things and it makes you realize how it impacts your life,” he said. “We want those same opportunities here for Flagler County kids and families.”
Helping launch the first large scale public meeting was Danila Coppola from the Florida Department of State, Division of Arts & Culture and Jaye Baille, director of the Marion Cultural Alliance. From big picture – being an official local arts agency offers the ability to apply for grant funding in particular categories to start-up – Marion County is also seeking their official local arts agency designation, it was an immersion for attendees. Some needed time to process all of the information presented throughout the evening while other were ready to express support.
“The population in Flagler County is getting ready to explode and the time is now to set up an infrastructure where you’re going to be able to fund all of this and really make a tremendous impact on the community,” said Siarkowicz.
Progress Report
Representatives from the City of Palm Coast, City of Bunnell and Flagler County were on hand to listen to the presentations, and Flagler County Tourism Office executive director Amy Lukasik was pleased by the turnout.
“What we are doing here tonight is giving everyone a progress update,” said Lukasik. “We’ve been working on forming this organization since May of last year.”
While the LAA organization must wait a full year before applying for grants, the TDC office has pledged to help support the operations of the all-volunteer group as it continues to lay the foundation and grow members.
“One of the future goals is more inclusivity for our community. We would like to bring together all of the cultural organizations outside of the arts and culture and truly have an International Festival here that this group oversees. Where it’s arts, historical, cultural, all within those different nationalities,” said Lukasik, sharing an example of the different members within the organization working together, while also reaching out to expand the opportunities to showcase the community.
At Palm Coast’s inception under ITT, resident Fanny Herrera created a hugely popular annual international festival that lasted over a decade and united the budding city’s melting pot of culture, but the arts, culture and history communities have been fragmented since.
Research shows the value of the arts in a community and in 2019 the National Endowment for the Arts cited an ACPSA (Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account) report, produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, demonstrated a steady increase in economic impact from the arts and culture sector to the tune of $804.2 billion annually, making up 4.3 percent of the nation’s GPD in 2016.
“For the past five years, the partnership between the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the National Endowment for the Arts has yielded invaluable information about the economic impact of arts and culture,” said Acting Chairman Mary Anne Carter, in 2019. “The data has consistently demonstrated the value of the arts to the nation, to individual states, and to the lives of the American people.”
Attendees offered their reactions, including real estate agent Pam Richardson, who works with clients from metropolitan areas of the United States, accustomed to a vibrant arts, culture and history community.
“It was a wonderful evening, a lot of information. It looks like we’re going to have a unified front that’s going to help all the little organizations along the way to be able to prosper and benefit the community,” said Richardson, accompanied by fine art antique dealer and gallerist Diana Minotti and Leann Pennington.
“I’m looking forward to it. It’s a wonderful opportunity for us to keep our residents who are here now, as well as invite new residents to come with their special interests,” she said.
“I think it’s a great idea with the passing of Tom Gargiulo, this is the little bit of the lift that the community needs, and the community joining together, we need an arts district to pull us together,” said Minotti.
