PRESS RELEASE
September 9, 2021
We are thrilled to announce that The Woodlands has been selected to receive a $120,000 recovery grant from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. The amount includes recovery project funding and an additional 20% in unrestricted, general operating support. This funding will provide The Woodlands with the capacity and resources to better engage with our visitors and partners as a result of the pandemic.
The value of The Woodlands as a meaningful place to safely gather and reflect is more evident than ever before. For the past 180 years, The Woodlands has endured as a sanctuary in the heart of West Philadelphia. Our mission and legacy of serving as a sanctuary has been amplified by the pandemic, and access to our 54-acres of historic green space has been a lifeline for the West Philadelphia communities around us. We are a place for the living.
This year, Philadelphians seeking an escape were introduced to us for the first time and became daily visitors. Formal requests to use our outdoor space have grown significantly, while daily visitation has quadrupled. Digital Tours helped us safely share our history with visitors on-site and at home. Concerts at sunrise with our partner Ars Nova Workshop were spiritual and reinvigorating. Volunteer events kept the Grave Gardens blooming and kept our partnership with Philadelphia Orchard Project growing.
While experiencing this staggering increase in daily visitation and demand for use of the site by other organizations, resource limitations prevented us from fully meeting this moment. Use of The Woodlands is limited to daylight hours as there is no lighting throughout the grounds, our small staff struggled to make connections with the number of new visitors traversing our 54 acres daily, and as outside organizations requested use of our space for theatre productions, concerts, movie screenings, and dance performances, our lack of physical infrastructure or a business model means many opportunities were lost or put on hold.
“A Place for the Living” will provide the resources we need to add amenities and easily connect with our many new visitors. It will make more spaces across our vast grounds 54 acres usable for public gatherings, increase our capacity to serve new audiences, and help our arts and culture partners move their missions forward by providing outside space to present their work—all while generating revenue for The Woodlands. Many pieces are in place for us to accelerate this work, including recently completed public restrooms, restored 18th-century buildings, and improvements to the landscape. Other capital funds are in place or pending to improve additional spaces within the grounds.
Read more about A Place for the Living and the other 2021 awardees:
About The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage:
The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is a multidisciplinary grantmaker and hub for knowledge-sharing, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, dedicated to fostering a vibrant cultural community in Greater Philadelphia. The Center invests in ambitious, imaginative, and catalytic work that showcases the region’s cultural vitality and enhances public life, and engages in an exchange of ideas concerning artistic and interpretive practice with a broad network of cultural practitioners and leaders.