Lincoln Financial Foundation is strengthening art education opportunities and access to the arts for a broad spectrum of Hartford residents through $182,500 in grants to nine local nonprofit organizations. The grants are a portion of more than $803,000 in charitable funds Lincoln Foundation has allocated for Hartford in 2013.

A $7,500 grant to the Amistad Foundation will fund Emancipation!, a nine-month exhibition exploring the concept of freedom in America during the Civil War Era. This powerful collection of images will illustrate the complexity of enacting the order to end slavery on January 1, 1863. Emancipation! will document the horrors and the heroes, the challenges and the changes of this tumultuous time in American history. Visitors to the museum and virtual visitors will learn more about this important story as the Amistad Foundation commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Work by living artists, such as Glenn Ligon, will make the exhibition more contemporary, underscoring that the Emancipation Proclamation, and later the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, comprised a chain of events that ultimately sparked the cry for freedom of all people everywhere. A resource area within the 4,000-square-foot exhibition space will encourage visitors to learn more and respond to what they have seen.

Other arts grants awarded include:

• $45,000 to Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts for its PARTNERS program, providing more than 4,500 students in grades K-12 with hands-on, curriculum-based arts units with a goal of improving literacy and increasing overall grade-level expectations. This grant also includes sponsorship of the Belding Theater.
• $30,000 to Hartford Stage Company for its Connections Literacy program in the Hartford public school system, which provides five-day artist residencies designed to instill a love of reading in first- to eighth-grade students.
• $25,000 to Hartford Symphony Orchestra for Lincoln Financial Discovery Concerts, a series of three concerts designed to educate elementary school students about music and orchestra instruments. The grant also funds Link Up, a new music education program that provides Hartford public school students with a yearlong music curriculum and recorders.
• $25,000 to Riverfront Recapture to redesign and reprint the Lincoln Financial Sculpture Walk brochure for use in local hotels and libraries as well as to provide three sculpture walk days for the public with trained docents to guide visitors.
• $20,000 to Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art to fund free docent-guided tours for students, aimed at exercising and enhancing their critical thinking skills by fostering observation and communication through active, participatory discussion. This grant also will sustain and expand the Wadsworth's online collection of teacher resources and help launch the Art and Writing Initiative, which will provide curriculum-based programming to develop literacy skills.
• $15,000 to Artists Collective for the Performing and Visual Arts Training program, which instills motivation and inspires school success in Hartford students from low-income neighborhoods while instructing them in the arts.
• $10,000 to Charter Oak Cultural Center for the Youth Arts Institute, which reaches more than 1,000 Hartford inter-city children through arts and literacy-based classes and provides them with free, nutritious meals and snacks.
• $5,000 to Greater Hartford Arts Council for Neighborhood Studios: Breakdancing Shakespeare. Breakdancing Shakespeare gives Hartford teens professional work experience in the arts and exposes them to a job-readiness curriculum as they produce a Shakespeare play integrating breakdancing, hip hop, rap and other contemporary elements.

About Lincoln Financial Foundation

The Lincoln Financial Foundation, established in 1962, is a nonprofit organization formed and supported by Lincoln Financial Group. Under Lincoln Foundation guidelines, grants are made in the areas of arts, education, human services and economic/workforce development. The Lincoln Foundation awarded almost $804,000 to support nonprofits in Hartford in 2012. Since establishing a presence in Hartford in 1998, the Lincoln Foundation has contributed nearly $22.7 million to Hartford nonprofits.

About Lincoln Financial Group

Lincoln Financial Group has set aside almost $10 million of its pre-tax earnings for charitable causes that support philanthropic endeavors in the communities where its employees work. Lincoln Financial Group is the marketing name for Lincoln National Corporation (NYSE:LNC) and its affiliates. With headquarters in the Philadelphia region, the companies of Lincoln Financial Group had assets under management of $178 billion as of December 31, 2012. Through its affiliated companies, Lincoln Financial Group offers: annuities; life, group life, disability and dental insurance; 401(k) and 403(b) plans; savings plans; and comprehensive financial planning and advisory services. For more information, including a copy of our most recent SEC reports containing our balance sheets, please visit www.LincolnFinancial.com.