| OHIO HERITAGE AREA PROGRAM PROMOTES VISITOR SPENDING | STATES INCREASE SUPPORT FOR ARTS EDUCATION |
 Hocking Valley Scenic Railroad, based in Nelsonville |
Awards from state arts agencies to arts education programs supported 7,536 projects in 2,622 communities across the nation in fiscal year 1998. State arts agencies devoted $43.1 million to arts education, which was a significant amount of their total resources: 28 percent of all grants and 17 percent of all grant dollars. Those dollars supported artist residencies, professional development and curriculum development, and helped leverage an arts education investment of local and private matching funds totaling $750 million. |
| Ohio's
Heritage Area Program spotlights our state's rich historical, cultural and
natural assets. The program is a partnership of state agencies, including
the Ohio Arts Council, and statewide organizations working together to
increase visitor spending in Ohio.
The Ohio Department of Developmentıs Division of Travel and Tourism administers the program and designates communities as heritage areas to encourage the preservation of cultural resources for tourism and other economic opportunities. Heritage areas are defined as communities with a distinctive sense of place unified by large-scale resources such as rivers, lakes or streams, canal systems, historic roads or trails and railroads. |
Three officially designated Heritage Areas were selected to receive grants in FY2000. They are the National Ohio Erie Canal Heritage Area, which includes 110 miles from Cleveland to New Philadelphia, $20,000; Maumee Valley Heritage Area, which stretches from Toledo to Fort Wayne, Indiana, $19,000; and the Ohio Hill Country Heritage Area, which includes 31 Appalachian counties in southeastern Ohio, $22,000. Two areas are expected to pursue the Heritage Area designation next year and will receive funding. They are the Miami-Erie Canal Heritage Area, $7,500, and Ohio's Historic West, $15,000.
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