 Creative Portland is the City of Portland's official non-profit arts agency. We host an annual Arts and Culture Summit that attracts over 150 cultural leaders, artists, investors, and stakeholders to implement strategic priorities identified in the cultural plan update of 2018. We have a small full-time staff of two funded by the city and a large board actively engaged with a skill set ready to face the challenges of reviving and supporting the arts community following the pandemic. Our mission is to promote the creative economy through the arts by providing resources, by fostering partnerships, and by promoting the artistic talents and cultural assets of Portland. Many of our signature public-facing programs are unhauled during the pandemic. First Friday Art Walk is our most well-known program, offering free self-guided art tours and calendar listings of cultural events on the first Friday of each month from 5 to 8 p.m. year-round. Here Here, an annual performing arts showcase held at Merrill Auditorium is a fairly new event with consecutive productions in 2019 and 2020 attracting 700. The show highlights the outstanding local talent of Portland's diverse performing artists, dancers, and musicians representing different artistic genres featuring the best of the best in Portland. Many community partners come together to make the production possible. Monday morning drop-by is also unhauled until we invite in the public. The Creative Portland Art Gallery has been transitioned online for local art sales and virtual exhibitions. When COVID-19 hit, we immediately established an artist relief fund awarding $500 each to Portland-based artists in the gig economy. We have raised $90,000 in grassroots funding so far, and we've dispersed grants to 85 artists. Phase 1 of the Creative Bus Shelter Initiative is complete. Creative Portland, in partnership with Metro and GP Cog, applied for a National Endowment for the Arts Art Town grant in 2018. The arts community, along with local and state elected officials, including Congresswoman Shelly Pingry, offered letters of support. In 2019, we were awarded a $25,000 matching grant and recruited partners and matching sponsors to bring the project to fruition. They included Rock Row, American Steel and Aluminum, Design Tax, and Portland Industrial Coatings. Creative Portland issued an open call to local artists. We assembled a volunteer curatorial team represented by curators and artists from Portland Museum of Art and Indigo Arts Alliance, as well as our project partners who served on the review committee. The chosen artists represented various perspectives under the theme of celebrating our city's diversity. Three finalists, including Ebenezer Acapo, a Mecca alum and Ghana native, Pigeon, a French street artist and Justin Levesque, a USM Art alumni, were able to deliver on time and on budget, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, with installations that took place in August of 2020, celebrated by the mayor and cultural leaders. Two of the completed shelters are on the peninsula and the other is located on the USM campus. We also curate and manage other public art initiatives. We have gathered a robust database of artists and curatorial teams to ensure inclusion and a high bar of excellence showcasing our local talent. It was a wonderful arts-based community initiative and inter-departmental collaboration among several city departments. Creative Portland has also produced and fostered partnerships for several showcase events and arts festivals, collaborating with multiple arts organizations. It is Creative Portland's hope to increase capacity to produce more outdoor events on temporary stages in Monument Square and Eastern Prom as early as this summer. To keep artists relevant and active, we plan to program inclusive arts, music, literary, and drama festivals. Meanwhile, we also maintain a cultural calendar of virtual events, classes, and exhibitions, with a self-upload option for venues and arts organizations. One of our most exciting new projects is the development of a cultural app made possible by a Cultural Implementation Award, which was a matching grant from the Maine Arts Commission. The digital marketing tool is a real game-changer for Portland. It will highlight our city as a world-class arts destination used by local patrons and tourists alike. Creative Portland is building capacity by providing fiscal sponsorships to fledgling organizations and new cultural initiatives. We invite you to sign up for our monthly arts newsletter on our homepage at creativeportland.com.