In this episode of our local program Making Democracy Work, host Erika Fox speaks with Caitlin Yager, program director with the Missouri Humanities Council.
Could you share a little bit more about what the Missouri Humanities Council does and kind of what your organization focuses on?
Yager: Absolutely. I would love to. Missouri Humanities is a statewide nonprofit organization. We explore history, civics, culture, through community programs, partnerships and things like traveling exhibits, digital initiatives. So, we're really wide reaching, and our programing is very varied and dynamic, and we do our best to reach all 114 counties through a variety of our programing. We also are a granting agency, so a big portion of our annual budget is giving back to Missouri communities through our grants. We offer grant applications open four times a year. And those are open to any nonprofit in Missouri that is hoping to put on some really great humanities public programing for Missourians. So, we're always encouraging organizations who have maybe never applied before to go out on a limb and try Missouri Humanities for some grant funding and get some great humanities programming throughout the state of Missouri.
A part of that is you're also focused on a special birthday coming up. America's turning 250. Can you share a little bit about what you all are doing to celebrate America's 250 with your statewide initiatives? It seems like it's a pretty unique way to kind of share Missouri's history while also celebrating America.
Yager: Absolutely. I feel like we've been commemorating things for many years with Missouri Humanities. You know, Missouri had its bicentennial not too long ago. And I feel like as soon as we kind of wrapped up the bicentennial program, we were trying to figure out what we were going to do for 2026 for the semiquincentennial. So, it feels like we've been celebrating it for a while. But, you know, the first way we kind of did it was open up a special grant round. So, we offered larger amounts of grant funding for special programing geared towards the 250th, so it was a special grant deadline that we opened up to Missouri organizations, and it was up to $25,000 instead of our usual $15 (thousand). And we really were inviting organizations to get creative with how they were helping to tell what we're calling the story of us. So, that's kind of the first way that we really went out and said, hey, we want to make sure that not only we're celebrating the 250th but other organizations are able to as well. So, aside from that, you know, that grant round happened last year, and those programming is kind of ongoing throughout this year. And we have a lot of that information on our website, so if you're interested in seeing what other organizations are doing, go to mohumanities.org. Aside from that, we've got a couple really great kind of programmatic components that we're doing to celebrate the 250th. One is a brand-new exhibit that we developed with the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy called "Stars, Stripes and Celebrations." It just opened in Jefferson City last week, and it will be up at the Missouri State Museum I think for about the next year. It's exploring ways in which Missourians have commemorated America's major birthdays and milestones and how we've contributed to American patriotism even during times of political, cultural and economic challenges, so it's a really broad and intricate exhibit that I think turned out really wonderful, so I'm excited for people to see that at the Missouri State Museum in Jeff City. The other big program is our keynote event, which is happening at the end of this month on June 30th. We're inviting Denise Kiernan. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Girls of the Atomic City and The Last Castle. And she has a new book coming out that is perfectly suited to the 250th. It's called Obstinate Daughters: The Rebels, Writers and Renegade Women Who Ignited the American Revolution. So, the title alone is like an amazing, you know, entre into an often untold part of the 250th story of the American fight for independence. So, that'll be on June 30th in Saint Louis at the Grandel Theater. We'll have Left Bank Books on site to sell copies of Obstinate Daughters. And Denise will also be doing a book signing. I know this is a lot of information, but everything is on mohumanities.org. And that'll be where you can find tickets to the keynote, information about the exhibit, our grantees and all the other things that we do because this just scratches the surface.
You all provide a lot. And it's so cool that it's focused on, you know, women, especially for the League of Women Voters. We love that. Thank you so much for sharing all of that excellent information about how we're celebrating America's 250. Thank you, Caitlin, for being on our program today.
KSMU is the recipient of a Missouri Humanities grant to fund Notable MO-ments.