PALMER – This year, the Palmer Cultural Council (PCC), a local agency funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, conducted a Community Input Survey.

Beth Zelazo, chairperson of the Palmer Cultural Council explained, “We are required to do a survey at least every two years. Since our funds are used to support the community, we need to hear from the community; what is it that they feel Palmer could do a better job with. The survey will be the catalyst to where we go when we start our next grant process which will start in September. “

The PCC receives their funds from the Mass Cultural Council. The Mass Cultural Council’s funds come from the Massachusetts Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts. Then, those funds get distributed down to their local cultural councils.

The PCC collected data from Palmer residents on topics relative to local cultural events. They had 188 responses; 95 percent were done online through Survey Monkey. The PCC asked residents what types of community-based projects in the arts, sciences and humanities should be offered in Palmer, how do they hear about activities and events that interest them, were they aware that artists, schools and community groups can apply for grants from the Palmer Cultural Council grants funds, what current arts, humanities, interpretive sciences and cultural programs are they aware of and feel are important to maintain and what segments of the town population should be targeted.

Based on the results, 64.81 percent of residents said they were not aware that artists, schools and community groups can apply for grants from the Palmer Cultural Council grants funds. Approximately 62.26 percent of respondents hear about such events on social media, 38.36 percent were unaware of the PCC’s past publicity and 29.56 percent said the PCC should focus on teens to reach through public funding of cultural projects and 27.04 percent said the youth. As far as how the PCC should prioritize funding for programs in the community, residents suggested nature and science, arts education in the schools, neighborhood revitalization, communitywide gatherings and field trips for students.

“We can look at the FY23 [fiscal year 2023] grant applications with the survey results in mind and try to support applications that address the major areas the people wanted,” Zelazo replied. “We can pull those out and give them a higher priority as long as the applications meet all the other criteria. It’s the driving force behind how we’re going to make grant decisions this year.”

The PCC even shared this year’s results with the Town Council, the Community’s Development Department, the Palmer Public Library, the Palmer Historical Cultural Council, the schools, M-PACT, the Senior Center, and the Chambers of Commerce. “We felt instead of keeping these results to ourselves, why not share this data we collected with others and use that information for their purposes,” Zelazo added.

In the meantime, the PCC is in a holding pattern. They will have a meeting sometime in August before the opening day of grant applications to discuss what their priorities are for the upcoming year. They plan to look at the results residents said they wanted programs to aim at such as teens, youth, families, community events, theater and local history.

Zelazo told Reminder Publishing one of the respondents commented Palmer High School has a great auditorium and felt it should be used more, so the PCC will be looking at applications that might be able to utilize the auditorium and meet the top percentages of what came out of the survey.

“I’m hoping this article will educate people in town as to what we do and encourage people who are artists, scientists, performers, crafters and teachers to apply for the grants. You have to be a local resident in Massachusetts, or the event has to take place in Massachusetts,” Zelazo responded. “This time, we’re going to make sure that the people who took the time to do this survey know their survey responses have not been a waste of time. We’re really going to listen to what the community has to say and do our best. Hopefully, we’ll get applications that focus on events for youth, teens, preserving local history, theater and field trips.”

Starting Sept. 1, people can go to massculturalcouncil.org to fill out a grant application. The deadline for online applications is Oct. 17. The PCC can be found on the town website at www.townofpalmer.com under the category of committees/boards or visit their Facebook page to learn more information. For questions, contact Zelazo at palmerculturalcouncil@gmail.com.