HAMPTON ROADS— Virginia Humanities has awarded $267,148 in grants to 29 nonprofit cultural organizations across the commonwealth, including projects in Yorktown, West Point, Virginia Beach and the broader Hampton Roads region.
“These projects reflect the many ways the humanities help us understand our communities and the people who have shaped them,” said Adam Courville, director of grants and fellowships at Virginia Humanities.
Yorktown’s Contraband Historical Society received funding for “THE GATE: The Story of America’s First Contraband Community,” a film project exploring the origins of the American Contraband movement through descendant family histories and the Grand Contraband Camp in Hampton during the Civil War and Reconstruction era.
West Point’s Mattaponi Indian Tribe and Reservation received support for a cultural preservation initiative that will create a new exhibit in the form of a traditional hunting and fishing camp longhouse to preserve and interpret Mattaponi heritage and traditions.
Virginia Beach’s Virginia Beach Library Foundation will host the Community Zine Project and Zine Festival, encouraging residents to share personal stories through self-published works while preserving community voices in a public, browsable collection. The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art will present the Made in VA Biennial 2026, an exhibition showcasing artists from across the state exploring identity, cultural memory and social change.
Hampton University will support a public humanities exhibition featuring oral histories and cultural landscapes of Korean immigrants in Newport News, using photography and interpretive materials to highlight regional diversity.
The Virginia Queer Film Festival in Norfolk received funding for its annual three-day festival showcasing LGBTQ+ films, panels and community programming. Horizons Hampton Roads in Norfolk received support for a youth storytelling program engaging K–12 students in personal narrative work that culminates in contributions to the Great American Birthday Quilt project marking the nation’s 250th anniversary.
