Tesoro Cultural Center received nearly $63,000 in grant money in 2015 from Denver’s Scientific & Cultural Facilities District (SCFD). Tesoro, a Tier III SCFD organization, would not have the funding for its K-12 educational programs, oral history films, curriculum materials for teachers, or to operate its two largest cultural celebrations, Indian Market and Powwow and the 1830s Rendezvous and Spanish Colonial Art Market, without the support of the SCFD.
Since 1989, the SCFD has distributed funds from a one-tenth of one percent sales and use tax (approximately $40 million annually) to cultural facilities throughout the seven-county Denver metropolitan area. The funds support cultural facilities whose primary purpose is to enlighten and entertain the public through the production, presentation, exhibition, advancement and preservation of art, music, theatre, dance, zoology, botany, natural history and cultural history.
Voters continue to reaffirm their support of the SCFD, extending the tax in 1994 and again in 2004; they will have another opportunity to extend the SCFD in November 2016, before the June 2018 sunset date.
“As the second largest annual contributor to Tesoro Cultural Center, our nonprofit would not be able to offer the programming and events it does without the support of the SCFD,” said Holly Arnold Kinney, founder and executive director of Tesoro Cultural Center. “We’re so grateful for the organization’s support, and encourage Denver voters to extend the SCFD’s funding in 2016, so organizations such as Tesoro can continue to offer important cultural programming to the community.”
For more information regarding Tesoro Cultural Center’s year-round mission and educational efforts, please call (303) 839-1671 or visit www.tesoroculturalcenter.org.
