Stemming from its physical locations in Moorestown (above) and Collingswood, the Perkins Center for the Arts provides arts experiences for all community members.
The Perkins Center for the Arts has been awarded funding from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts (Arts Council) for the Fiscal Year 2026.
The vital grants include $267,960 for General Operating Support (GOS); a $155,000 Folk & Traditional Arts Project Grant; and additional support for “Paved with Promise,” a statewide folklife collaboration celebrating immigration in New Jersey.
“The arts are such an undersung pillar in our community,” said Kahra Buss, Perkins’ executive director. “ … The arts bring people together for a common purpose, to achieve a certain goal … When you come into an art space and you acknowledge that there’s a value to it, that value is not just what you get out of it.
“It’s what you bring to it, and how you connect with those around you by doing it.”
Perkins has been a community-based cultural asset since 1977, providing visual and performing arts experiences to the South Jersey region. Stemming from its physical locations in Moorestown and Collingswood, the center provides exemplary arts experiences for all community members through its Conservatory of Music; year-round visual and performing arts instruction; 20-plus annual exhibitions; free public concerts; artist-led, in-school residency programs; a summer arts camp; folklife at Perkins; and community enrichment projects.
“When we think about, how do we continue to create a space where community is welcomed, where community is celebrated, where people can come together and find ways to communicate …” Buss noted, “that investment in the arts is essential. What we see here is an opportunity to provide social connections and meaningful connections between people that don’t know each other …
“(These grants) allow us to continue this work where we connect people.”
The General Operating Support funds provide crucial unrestricted funding to Perkins’ 1,200-plus community programs to support its diverse, year-round visual, musical, literary, folk and performing arts programs. They include exhibitions, concerts, community enrichment projects and support of visual and performing arts instruction.
Folk & Traditional Arts Project Grant funding supports NJ Folklife at Perkins, one of the state’s five Folklife Centers, to sustain the commitment to preserve and promote New Jersey’s rich, cultural heritage. The funding directly supports structured learning opportunities that advance skills in traditional art forms and facilitate intergenerational knowledge transfer.
Additional support for the “Paved with Promise: Local and Global Perspectives on Immigration” – administered through Wheaton Arts’ Down Jersey Folklife Center – will enable Perkins to explore individual and group immigration experiences through oral-history interviews and a small traveling exhibit.
“Perkins Center for the Arts is honored to be a trusted partner of the New Jersey State Council of the Arts in South Jersey,” Buss state. “This essential funding supports Perkins’ high-quality, free and low-cost arts experiences that serve more than 72,000 people annually,” Buss explained.
The New Jersey State Council on the Arts is a division of the New Jersey Department of State and a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.
