HUDSON, NY – The Olana Partnership (TOP) is pleased to announce it has been awarded a Grants for Arts Projects award of $20,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). This grant will support staffing to expand TOP’s community engagement initiatives. The project is one of 1,127 Grants for Arts Projects totaling $31.8 million awarded by the NEA nationwide for fiscal year 2025.
“The NEA is proud to continue our nearly 60 years of supporting the efforts of organizations and artists that help to shape our country’s vibrant arts sector and communities of all types across our nation,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “It is inspiring to see the wide range of creative projects taking place, including The Olana Partnership’s Capacity Building for Deeper Community Engagement project.”
”The Olana Partnership greatly appreciates the NEA’s support for our work to engage our local communities with Olana and its educational and cultural resources and the national recognition this grant carries,” said Sean Sawyer, Washburn & Susan Oberwager President.
In recent years, TOP has created robust educational and public programs both at Olana State Historic Site and in local communities, engaging a wider audience in Frederic Church’s Olana. To build upon this success, this award supports the hiring of an Education Assistant to sustain and expand community outreach and increase the number of students that can participate in school field trips and in other youth programming. TOP is thrilled to announce that Vanessa Baehr, an educator with a wealth of prior experience with youth programming has filled this role joining TOP in January. Vanessa has worked extensively with Olana’s regional community at organizations including Flying Deer, Hudson Youth Center, Kite’s Nest, and the Friends of Clermont.
“NEA’s support is essential to growing The Olana Partnership’s educational capacity by supporting the hiring of additional staff and ongoing community engagement efforts,” said Carolyn Keogh, Director of Education and Public Programs. “We are so lucky to welcome a wonderful new team member from Olana’s regional community to help guide this work and to have national support for our efforts.”
To learn more about programs and events at Olana, visit OLANA.org. For more information on other projects included in the NEA’s grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.
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About Olana and The Olana Partnership: Olana is the greatest masterwork of Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), the most famous American landscape artist of the mid-19th century and the most important artist’s home, studio, and designed landscape in the United States. Church designed Olana as a holistic environment integrating his advanced ideas about art, architecture, landscape design, and environmental conservation. Olana’s 250-acre artist-designed landscape with five miles of carriage roads and a Persian-inspired house at its summit embraces unrivaled panoramic views of the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains and welcomes more than 170,000 visitors annually. The landscape is open for guided touring, and reservations are highly recommended. The landscape is open daily 8 AM-sunset.
Olana State Historic Site, administered by the New York State Office of Parks,
Recreation and Historic Preservation, is a designated National Historic Landmark and one of the most visited sites in the state. The Olana Partnership is the 501(c)(3) not-for- profit cooperative partner of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation at Olana State Historic Site.