Wheeling Heritage Advances to Public Voting Phase for Opportunity to Receive a $90k Multi-Year Grant for a Free, Live Music Series in Wheeling
WHEELING, W.Va. – September 7, 2022 – Wheeling Heritage is now in the running to bring a free outdoor music series to Wheeling starting in 2023.
Supported by the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation, a social impact funder at the intersection of music and public spaces, Wheeling Heritage hopes to qualify Wheeling as one of the Top 20 finalists in the public voting phase of the Levitt AMP [Your City] Grant Awards. The public is urged to support Wheeling Heritage’s proposal by participating in the public voting process, via online or text, taking place from September 12–21, 2022, at levitt.org/vote.
The Levitt AMP [Your City] Grant Awards are an exciting, multi-year matching grant opportunity created by the Levitt Foundation to serve small to mid-sized towns and cities with populations up to 250,000. Nonprofits will receive a total matching grant of $90,000 over three years (2023, 2024, and 2025 at $30,000/year) to produce their own Levitt AMP Music Series—an outdoor, free concert series featuring a diverse lineup of professional musicians that reimagines an underused public space to create an inclusive destination for people of all ages and backgrounds.
Wheeling Heritage submitted the proposal for Wheeling to present the free music series in the Market Street Plaza. Wheeling’s proposal will be posted on the Levitt Foundation website, starting on September 8, where the public can vote and learn more about the 36 communities from across the country that have advanced to the voting phase. An individual may vote for up to five proposals but may vote for the same proposal only once. There are two easy ways for the public to cast their vote: online at levitt.org/vote or via text to 866-AMP-2023 (866-267-2023) with the keyword WHEELING.
Reflecting the Levitt Foundation’s mission that all Levitt projects are community-driven, the voting phase of the Levitt AMP [Your City] Grant Awards is an important way to measure community support. The number of online and text votes received for Wheeling will be one of the key factors when the Levitt Foundation selects the grant recipients this November.
Public voting opens September 12, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time and ends September 21, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The Top 20 finalists will be selected through the online and text-to-vote public voting phase. The Levitt Foundation will then review the top proposals and will select up to 10 Levitt AMP grant recipients, which will be announced on November 15, 2022.
“Wheeling is already home to a great lineup of free, live music events, but this grant will provide us with substantial resources to host a diverse lineup of talented performers from across the country,” said Alex Panas, Program Manager for Wheeling Heritage. “We are thankful to the Levitt Foundation for the chance to receive this grant and bring such a high-quality music series to our city. We are also especially thankful to our community partners at the Wheeling Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce, and the City of Wheeling for supporting us in this project.”
Wheeling Heritage asks supporters to spread the word to family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors and rally the community to vote for Wheeling’s proposal to bring a free concert series to Market Plaza beginning in 2023.
Learn more at levitt.org/vote.
About Wheeling Heritage: Wheeling Heritage is a catalyst for the revitalization of Wheeling. Through historic preservation, community development, and the arts, we help to tell Wheeling’s story and shape its future. We seek to improve the quality of life in Wheeling by preserving and investing in our city, collaborating with others, and engaging the citizens of Wheeling in our work.
