About the Melrose Messina Fund for the Arts
In September 2024, Mayor Jen Grigoraitis and the Melrose Cultural Council (MCC) announced that the Melrose Messina Fund for the Arts (MMFA), a City of Melrose-funded account administered by mayoral appointees, will be incorporated into the MCC. This merger will improve and streamline the MCC’s and MMFA’s common mission of grantmaking for community arts and culture endeavors in the City of Melrose.
The MMFA was established in 2012 to help Melrose artists and arts organizations finance their projects. Its goal, similar to the MCC, was to provide funding for projects occurring in Melrose that benefit the Melrose community and to supplement the budgets of local arts organizations and individual artists in order to encourage both diversity and innovation in arts presentations in the City and to provide broad-based arts experiences to the citizens of Melrose.
Funded by the City’s annual budget, the MMFA was staffed by volunteers appointed by the Mayor who demonstrated an interest in and knowledge of the local arts landscape. Volunteers from the MMFA now also sit on the board of the MCC.
Just like the MCC, to the MMFA a successful grant was one that benefits the community at large and exposes the community to some aspect of the arts. Each project they funded included an opportunity to share its outcome with the Melrose community in the form of a demonstration, art show, or performance.
We look forward to continuing the legacy of the Melrose Messina Fund for the Arts through our work and engaging with grantees of the MMFA through our new joint collaboration.
More about this merger can be found on the City of Melrose website.
