Areito Taino is grateful for New York City’s support of accessible arts programming, artists, cultural workers, and community-based organizations.
A Meaningful Step for New York’s Creative Communities
On October 2, 2026, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani, Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su, and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Diya Vij announced a significant increase in City-funded regrant support. According to the NYC Mayor’s Office announcement, awards for individual artists and small nonprofits would increase from a maximum of $5,000 to $10,000—the first such increase in nearly 20 years.
This citywide investment recognizes that artists and small community-based organizations are essential to New York’s cultural life. It also signals the importance of making arts opportunities accessible to residents in every borough, including Queens.
At a glance
The announced maximum regrant award would rise from $5,000 to $10,000 for eligible individual artists and small nonprofits, according to the NYC Mayor’s Office.
For Areito Taino, the significance of this announcement extends beyond the increase in grant support. It reflects a broader public commitment to sustaining the artists, cultural workers, and community-based organizations that make accessible arts education possible. That commitment matters because arts programs do more than offer creative activities: they provide children, youth, and families with sustained opportunities to learn, build relationships, develop their voices, and participate in the performing arts in ways that honor their cultural identities and lived experiences. When these opportunities are rooted in community, they help make artistic and cultural engagement part of everyday life in Queens.
Why Community Arts Organizations Matter
Community nonprofits bring vital programming directly to residents—in schools, community centers, libraries, and neighborhood spaces. They create welcoming environments where children, families, and neighbors can learn together, express themselves, and build lasting connections through the arts.
Arts access supports more than creative enrichment. It can strengthen confidence, encourage collaboration, preserve cultural expression, and contribute to community wellbeing by making shared experiences available to people where they live.
When local arts organizations have meaningful support, communities gain:
Expanding Arts Opportunities in Queens
Areito Taino’s work reflects the value of accessible performing-arts opportunities for children, youth, and families in Queens. Our programs are designed to create supportive spaces where participants can learn, grow, and experience the joy of artistic expression in their own community.
At the heart of this work is our free, year-round children’s dance program for ages 5–10 and our youth playwriting programs. Together, these offerings welcome young participants into structured, encouraging spaces where they can develop discipline, focus, confidence, creativity, cultural connection, and a lasting relationship with the arts.
Across Queens, many children, youth, and families face financial, geographic, transportation, scheduling, and other barriers to consistent access to high-quality arts education. Community-based programs help expand that access by bringing meaningful learning opportunities closer to where families live, while creating environments that honor the strengths, ideas, and aspirations participants already bring with them.
Arts programs provide far more than a creative outlet. Through regular practice, mentorship, rehearsal, and shared responsibility, participants can experience the consistency of structure, the encouragement of belonging, and the satisfaction of building skills over time. They learn to listen, concentrate, collaborate, communicate, take creative risks, and express their own perspectives—capacities that can support them as they pursue educational, professional, and personal goals.
Sustained participation can also help young people imagine broader possibilities for their lives and see pathways beyond the circumstances or resources immediately available to them, without prescribing a single definition of success. By developing their own voice, recognizing their capacity, and connecting with others, participants expand their vision of themselves and their community. They begin to see themselves not only as learners and creators, but also as contributors to the cultural life of Queens.
These benefits extend far beyond the studio. Accessible arts education gives children space to grow while helping families experience the value of creative learning as part of everyday community life.
A Stronger Creative Ecosystem Across New York City
Through DCLA’s borough-based regrant partners, City-funded support can reach artists, collectives, and small nonprofits throughout New York City. In Queens, the Queens Arts Fund is administered by the New York Foundation for the Arts and supports Queens-based artists, collectives, and small organizations producing public arts and cultural programs.
An increased grant ceiling can give eligible applicants greater room to sustain free and low-cost programming while responding to the needs of their communities. Across all five boroughs, that support can help keep creative opportunities present, welcoming, and connected to local life.
Community-rooted programs may include:
Voices on the Importance of This Investment
The NYC Mayor’s Office announcement reflects a shared understanding that artists and cultural workers are central to New York City’s identity, economy, and communities.
“Doubling these grants is a critical step towards making sure that the painters, musicians, filmmakers, and other artists who bring life to this city can afford to call it home.”
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani
“With the grant increases we are unveiling today, we will help change that. We will make sure that more artists can work in our city and reaffirm our administration’s commitment to protecting and growing the arts in New York.”
— Julie Su, Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice
“These increased grants and free resources from Materials for the Arts represent our first step to deeper, more meaningful support we’re committed to providing so artists can stay in the city we love.”
— Diya Vij, Commissioner, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs
“We’re thrilled that the Mayor’s Office and the Department of Cultural Affairs is increasing their investment in working artists and in bringing arts and culture to all five boroughs including Queens through the Queens Arts Fund, which NYFA is proud to administer.”
— Michael Royce, CEO, New York Foundation for the Arts
“The artists and cultural workers who live, work, and create in neighborhoods across Queens fuel the energy, vibrancy, and cultural offerings of this international borough.”
— Diya Vij, Commissioner, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs
What This Means for Queens
Queens is home to a diverse and vibrant network of families, schools, artists, cultural workers, and grassroots organizations. Public investment in the arts helps these communities offer meaningful cultural experiences close to home, whether in a classroom, a community center, a rehearsal space, or a neighborhood gathering place.
For organizations like Areito Taino, a stronger creative ecosystem can help sustain the relationships and programs that make arts education accessible. It can support spaces where children and youth build confidence, families connect through shared experiences, and local culture is celebrated with care and purpose.
Close to home
Accessible arts opportunities in Queens enable residents to come together across generations and backgrounds, engage more freely with their rich and diverse cultural heritage, and explore how heritage shapes identity, belonging, and shared civic life. Community-based arts spaces allow families, children, youth, artists, and cultural workers to celebrate the histories, traditions, languages, stories, and creative practices of their communities while also building new forms of cultural expression. This participation can strengthen collective pride, deepen connection to place, and affirm Queens as a community whose diversity is a source of knowledge, creativity, and cultural vitality. – Soraya Sussman, Co-founder, CEO, The AreitoTaino Group.
A Shared Commitment to Community Well-Being
Like many small nonprofit organizations, Areito Taino is navigating the difficult realities facing community-based work today. Across Queens and throughout New York City, arts organizations are working to sustain meaningful programs while confronting rising costs, limited resources, and the continuing challenges experienced by underserved and financially constrained families. When essential community services become harder to access, the effects are felt not only in individual households but also in the broader well-being, connection, and vitality of our neighborhoods.
For this reason, the arts community is deeply grateful to the Mayor’s Office, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York Foundation for the Arts, arts partners, community collaborators, families, and supporters whose commitment helps sustain the cultural and educational spaces communities depend on. Investment in the arts is also an investment in belonging, resilience, cultural expression, and the shared civic life of New York City.
Areito Taino remains committed to building accessible opportunities for children, youth, and families in Queens. We invite you to learn more about our programs and support a future in which every community can participate in the arts, celebrate its heritage, and contribute to the cultural life of the city.
Sources and Further Reading
- NYC Mayor’s Office announcement: October 2, 2026, “Mayor Mamdani Doubles Grants for New York City Artists”.
- NYC artist grant information: nyc.gov/artistgrants.
- Queens Arts Fund: information from the New York Foundation for the Arts.