The CDC Foundation has announced grants totaling $2.5 million to use the arts to build confidence in the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 and seasonal influenza vaccines.

Thirty organizations will receive grants to create arts and culture-based approaches to educating local communities about the vaccines and increase vaccination rates across the United States. Selected in collaboration with the National Endowment for the Arts, the recipients will provide accurate information about the COVID-19 and influenza vaccines in engaging ways that cut through cultural barriers, skepticism, and misinformation — by staging plays, commissioning posters and murals, sewing quilts, creating dances, and writing songs.

Recipients include Spirit of Youth (Alaska), Museo de las Americas (Colorado), Out of Hand Theater (Georgia), Asian Media Access, Inc. (Minnesota), St. Louis Story Stitchers (Missouri), Hip Hop Public Health Inc. (New York), Migrant Clinicians Network (Texas), and the Somali Health Board (Washington).

“We are excited to bring the arts and science together in a really powerful way with these partnerships,” said CDC Foundation president and CEO Judy Monroe. “Through their chosen art forms, these organizations will be able to create accessible and inspiring work that communicates essential health information about the safety and importance of vaccination in protecting communities from COVID-19 and influenza.”

For a complete list of grant recipients, see the CDC Foundation website.

(Photo credit: GettyImages)