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LAGUNA BEACH : Festival Foundation Approves Arts Gifts

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The Laguna Beach Festival of Arts Foundation has agreed on its first series of financial gifts to arts organizations.

Although the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts has for years regularly provided money for organizations that promote the arts, last year the festival transferred $1.5 million into a new account to create a foundation to ensure that money will always be available for the arts, said Sally Reeve, spokeswoman for the festival.

“No matter what might ever happen to the Festival of Arts, that money will be available,” Reeve said. “People have started to donate to this foundation and the word has hardly been out.”

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Last week, the foundation board, which consists of past presidents of the Festival of Arts, discussed the requests for grants. While not all the money will be dispensed immediately, Reeve said the foundation board agreed to give $20,000 to the Art Institute of Southern California, $10,000 to the Laguna Beach Chamber Music Society and $1,500 to the Laguna Beach High School art program.

Reeve said the foundation is unusual in that it has no overhead and everyone involved is a volunteer, allowing donations to go directly to the arts rather than for salaries or other expenses.

“To me, that’s very exciting because it’s very, very rare,” she said.

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