SCF Awards $500K in Grants to STX Nonprofits

M.A. Dworkin

St. Croix - St. Croix Foundation for Community Development (SCF) recently announced the recipients of $534,000 in grant funding through its 2025 Healing Humanities Cultural Place Keeping Grant Program. 

Thirteen innovative nonprofits and community groups serving the island of St. Croix have been selected to receive grants supporting projects that celebrate, preserve, and elevate St. Croix’s rich cultural and historical heritage through arts, storytelling, and community engagement. 

Made possible through a generous investment from the Mellon Foundation’s Humanities in Place Program, aimed at strengthening local cultural landscapes, the following organizations will receive grant awards ranging from $10,000 to $75,000. Over $301,184 in unrestricted operating grants were awarded to organizations whose entire mission and programming explicitly centers on cultural place-keeping, while $232,816 in programmatic funding was awarded to nonprofits implementing projects that preserve local traditions, and support cultural sustainability through initiatives that include heritage preservation, oral history, cultural programming, artistic expression, and community storytelling - all rooted in the unique history and identity of St. Croix.

• Anatha, Through Their Eyes - Bridging Generations

• Children’s Museum of St. Croix

•  CMCArts, Inc

• Crucian Heritage and Nature Tourism (CHANT)

• Guardians of Culture, Inc.

• Island Food Security

• Keeping Masquerading Traditions Alive

• Music in Motion School of Higher Dance Education

• Our Town Frederiksted

• Quelbe Institute for the Preservation of Traditional Dance

• Ten Sleepless Knights (TSK)

• VI Breast Cancer Project, Art of Healing: Threads of Resistance - Healing Through Arts, Heritage, and Culture

• VI Literary Festival & Book Fair    

“These thirteen awardees represent a diverse range of humanities and social services organizations, and together, they are weaving a new system of coherent support spanning food security, art therapy for cancer survivors, Crucian culture and art, and economic development - all grounded in our People and our Place,” said SCF President and CEO, Deanna James. “Their collective work exemplifies how storytelling, heritage preservation, and cultural expression can serve as vital tools for holistic social renewal and community resilience,” Ms James continued. “This grant opportunity provides an unprecedented and vital platform for a broad spectrum of nonprofits that often do not qualify for federal funding as grassroots organizations that are essential to the fabric of our community but traditionally lack access to these resources. We are proud to support their efforts to advance cultural place-keeping and healing not just as a programmatic priority but as inclusive, innovative, and deeply rooted economic drivers.”