Meet the Colorado Grantees: Encore Grants in Action

Behind every Encore Grant is the same starting point: a person or program that already knows exactly what their community needs — they just need the resources to make it happen. Here’s where that’s led so far in Colorado.

FOR THE KIDS

Colorado Springs Youth Symphony Association has now received multiple cycles of support, funding The Mozart Project, a program that keeps costs down for the more than 150 students who take part in it each year across a handful of planned performances. It’s the kind of grant that means one more kid gets a seat in the orchestra instead of sitting this season out.

Solid Rock Community Development Corporation used its grant to fund ‘Free to Be’, an arts, music, and poetry program running in Colorado Springs District 11 and District 2 schools, supporting materials and artist contractors so the program can actually show up for students, not just exist on paper.

Academy ACL, a K-8 charter school in Colorado Springs District 11, put its grant toward something delightfully concrete: new intermediate instruments for their class. With various performances throughout the year, the program has flourished.

ART ON THE STREETS

Malachiah (Denver) and Tyler Haynie (Colorado Springs) are the two artists behind Echoes of the Rockies, the murals now living permanently at Ford Amphitheater. Two cities, two perspectives.

Palmer Lake Arts Council has used two cycles of Encore Grant funding: once to install sculptures in the heart of Palmer Lake, Colorado, and again to help fund the construction of the town’s third plinth in 2026, part of an ongoing public art series that’s slowly reshaping how the town looks, feels, and unites together.

Colorado Springs Youth Sports Inc. took a different approach to the same idea, using its grant to paint a large mural inside El Pomar Youth Sports Park — proof that a scoreboard isn’t the only thing worth looking at.

And then there’s Awake Palmer Lake, which used its grant toward commissioning local blacksmith and artist Jody Bliss to design and install a large multimedia troll sculpture beneath the pedestrian bridge at Palmer Lake. It’s the debut piece in a planned public art walk. Because sometimes the best way to protect a piece of folklore is to build one.

CONCERTS THAT BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER

Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum used its grant to support its Annual Gift of History fundraiser in May 2026, featuring an exclusive preview of the museum’s Freedom to Thrive exhibit celebrating America’s 250th and Colorado’s 150th anniversaries, with grant funds covering honorariums for local musicians, community curators, and photography.

Woodland Park Wind Symphony put its grant toward venue fees, a small change that made a real difference in making its concert accessible to more of the community — one less reason for someone to miss the show.

The Ute Pass Symphony Guild used its funding to help sustain Symphony Above the Clouds, a free annual July 4th concert in Woodland Park that draws 3,500 to 4,000 attendees for live music, local talent, and a fireworks finale, at a time when reduced city funding put the event’s future in question.

Downtown Partnerships used its grant toward artist fees for its Summer Concert Series, a free, weekly outdoor concert series at the Acacia Park Bandshell in downtown Colorado Springs running June through September — seventeen concerts deep.

Concrete Couch put its funding toward Couchella, an all-ages music and arts festival at Concrete Coyote Community Park spanning 7+ acres of live music, poetry, disc golf, a kids’ talent show, and a lantern-making station that spills into a lantern parade as the sun goes down.

Children’s Literacy Center received funding for Blues on the Mesa, with grant dollars going toward the festival’s stage, all in service of a literacy mission — because sometimes the best way to get a community to show up for books is a little blues music.