berks arts council's latest grant award ceremony-- november 8, 2015.

last weekend, berks arts council hosted its 2015-2016 pennsylvania partners in the arts grant award ceremony for recipients in three local counties who received funding to help in all sorts of arts projects in our region. each year, goggleworks is the host for this awards ceremony since berks arts council's office is located in this arts center within the city of reading.

the pennsylvania council on the arts supported this poetry project for the second year in a row, and total funding also through berks arts council's assistance increased by almost 40 percent since last year. amazinggg, yes. simply put.

a total of 39 nonprofits and individuals received grants for their varied, valuable work in the arts in berks, lancaster, and schuylkill counties, and  this says a lot about the hard work of each of the sets of people who applied for these grants. we are very fortunate to live in an area where people value and push arts forward so much and in a state where the arts are backed by legislators.

this latest grant is a great honor to receive, on top of being wonderful news, and it helps the project to be possible yet again for a second year, in supporting an important portion of the costs for this work in berks county. 

since the ceremony always takes place in goggleworks, the shortest poem from the first book for this project seemed like a perfect fit to read to the audience because it took place in this same building in the 1940s when willson products, inc. still had a presence in the city of reading. here is the full poem, which comes from the life of helen mengel of maidencreek township. she joined our world in 1924.

*

my desk job at willson products, inc.
took root in the advertising department.

we put together ads
for newspapers, flyers,

and folders. six of us sat together,
brainstorming. the only other woman

besides me quit because
she didn't like the men's

foul language. older than me, she
had been preparing to marry and didn't

enjoy the way the guys joked
about how her wedding

night would go. so she left me there
as the only female, and including

the boss, that made
five of us. still

a teenager, i didn't really mind it.
they never bothered me much.

when rain
and river

flooded the factory in 1942, we all
had to help clean lenses for a week,

wiping them
down with cloth.

*

( helen mengel )