VERO BEACH — After a faltering show of support from the state last year, funding is back up to close to normal for the Emerson Center’s free Florida Humanities Series.
The Emerson Center, known for its Celebrated Speakers series at $55 per person and up, has always regarded its offering of the free Humanities Series as a sort of economic off-set to the public.
Last year, though, money was not immediately forthcoming from the Florida Humanities Council. Organizers expected to have to cancel the season, when late in the fall, $1,000 came through. Two speakers were hired.
This year, the center has received $4,800 to be split over the next two seasons. While that is still a reduction from the usual $3,000 received in the past, it is adequate to fund a full season of six events, organizers say.
This is the fifth year that the Emerson Center is hosting experts, authors and entertainers recommended by the Florida Humanities Council. That group, based in St. Petersburg, is the state’s affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
In addition to the parent group, the Florida Humanities Council receives money from Florida’s budget as well.
In turn, the humanities council gives money to non-profit organizations like the Emerson Center to host public programs about Florida cultural issues.
In Vero Beach, a committee, co-chaired by Don Croteau and Susan Grandpierre, chooses from among some 150 to 200 speakers and performers. Each performer has been
vetted by the state’s humanities council, and a fee has been negotiated.
That fee is paid by Emerson, in part with humanities council grant money, as well as local sponsorship – this year’s sponsor is Marine Bank and Trust.
Emerson is responsible for the costs of marketing and staging the series.
Croteau says grant awards have become more competitive.
“We have to demonstrate that we’re spending money on our own. It used to be they were funding anybody who was doing the program. And they’d give us speakers’ fees, plus a little bit more. Now it’s just the speakers’ fees.”
Being able to choose from the long roster of available speakers means that Emerson essentially customizes the Humanity Series for the Vero Beach audience.
That audience is a dedicated one, with one of the largest attendance rates in the state.
“They think we are the flagship for the whole state,” says Croteau.
Originally designed to provide humanities programming for smaller communities and lesser populated areas, many towns only stage one event a year.
Apart from last season, when money ran short, Emerson has consistently offered five or six.
“We have a great participation because we have a larger venue and we’re willing to spend money on advertising. That’s because we consider this our gift to the community.”
The Emerson Center can hold 844 people.
There have been times that entertainers and speakers, accustomed to appearing in libraries or other small spaces, were taken aback by the size of the crowd, gathered in the main hall of Vero’s Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.
Two years ago, the audience was riveted by a video documentary presentation on the Tuskegee airmen.
“That went on forever,” Croteau says. “There was one airman there in his 90s, and everybody was fascinated. There were 700 people there. Nobody left.”
This year’s series includes three evenings of presentations having to do with Florida’s Hispanic heritage.
The first, on Oct. 27, features Paul Dosal, a professor of Latin American history at the University of South Florida, speaking of Florida’s 500-year ties to Latin American and the Caribbean.
Another professor, Alex Stepick, will speak in February on immigration issues. Stepick, who teaches global and socio-cultural studies at Miami’s Florida International University, is director of the Immigration and Ethnicity Institute.
He is an expert in U.S. refugee law.
Another Latin-influenced evening is scheduled to wrap up the series in April, when storyteller Carrie Sue Ayvar offers tales of her childhood in Mexico.
In between, there will be a performance by Florida folk musicians and story tellers The Ashley Gang in December, a lecture in January on water sustainability in Florida, and another on the Florida East Coast Railway in March.
For more information and a schedule, visit www.themersoncenter.org, or call 772-778-5249.
The Emerson Center is located at 1590 27th Avenue, on the SE corner of 16th Street and 27th Avenue in Vero Beach.
