BROOKINGS, S.D. (KELO) – A non-profit that gives free books to students across South Dakota found out Thursday morning that 100% of its federal funding from the National Endowment For The Humanities had been cut. This comes as the Department of Government Efficiency tries to reduce government spending.
Part of the South Dakota Humanities Council’s mission is to deliver humanities programming like local history, culture and storytelling to the people of South Dakota.
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Executive director Christina Oey says there was little warning that funding for the organization was on the chopping block, and now the non-profit needs to make cuts of its own.
“The first one that to me personally is most concerning is our young readers book. Our Young Readers Program provides a free book to every single third grader in the state of South Dakota. And so with these cuts, we don’t know if that’s going to happen anymore,” Oey said.
Oey says it gets $950,000 from the federal government which is 73% of its operating budget. The rest comes from donations.
“Unfortunately it’s impossible to make that up for this fiscal year through private donations. And even if they do come through this year, we don’t know what’s going to happen next year,” Oey said.Jennifer Widman oversees the South Dakota Center for the Book, which is part of the SD Humanities Council. She says the cut will leave a gap in outreach efforts the organization does like the annual Festival of Books.
“Everybody is for efficient government. But what we do with money here in the state and the way that we deliver it to every corner of the state to as many people as we can from all walks of life, for free or almost free in every case, those projects, those programs just don’t exist anywhere else,” Widman said.
Both Oey and Widman say the cut will hit young people the hardest.
“I think that the literary community in South Dakota would feel it very strongly. And what we think of as the future literary community, the young readers, it’s an even worse impact for them,” Widman said.”I challenge you to go into a third-grade classroom where you can see their faces light up when they receive that book. And it really does make an impact on literacy rates in South Dakota,” Oey said. “The other big one that’s concerning us is our annual Festival of Books. Every year we have between 5,000 to 7,000 attendees from across the state and out of the state that attend to come together to celebrate literacy,” Oey said.
South Dakota Humanities Council says since the cut, its been in contact with U.S. Representative Dusty Johnson’s office. He says he’s going to bring up the non-profit’s concerns to the White House.
