Proceeds From Past Red Ants Pants Music Festivals Enrich and Promote Rural Communities

White Sulphur Springs - The Red Ants Pants Foundation announced recipients of its 2022 community grant cycle today featuring organizations across Montana with active projects to enrich and promote rural communities. Each year, with proceeds from the Red Ants Pants Music Festival, the Red Ants Pants Foundation awards grants to organizations and individuals whose projects further the Foundation’s mission to increase women’s leadership, enrich and promote rural communities, and support working family farms and ranches. To date, the Foundation has granted over $130,000 to nearly 100 entities across nearly every corner of Montana. 

2022 FOCUS AREA: Enriching and promoting rural communities

This year, the Foundation sought applications for projects that support our mission pillar of ‘enriching and promoting rural communities.’ The 2022 grant recipients include rural economic development organizations, museums, and volunteer-driven organizations that provided creative proposals to revitalize and enhance the small towns they serve.

“Whether it’s bringing back a small-town drive-in experience to support the local museum or coming up with creative ways to beautify run-down spaces, our 2022 grantees are making important strides toward leading the rural revitalization,” said Sarah Calhoun, executive director of the Red Ants Pants Foundation. “We thank our grantees for their innovative approaches and look forward to working with them to continue to create positive ripple effects across Montana. We also thank our Red Ants Pants Music Festival fans who help fund these grants through buying tickets.”

The 2022 Red Ants Pants Music Festival is coming up July 28 – 31st. Tickets can be purchased online at www.RedAntsPantsMusicFestival.com/tickets.
 

2022 Red Ants Pants Foundation Grantees

Eastern Plains Economic Development Corporation (EPEDC) 
Location: Baker, MT
Award: $1,000
Eastern Plains Economic Development Corporation (EPEDC) wants to empower local individuals and organizations to create places in their community of which they can be proud. The Eastern Plains Placemaking Challenge is a creative placemaking grant competition open to residents of Carter, Dawson, Fallon, Prairie, and Wibaux Counties to encourage revitalization of underutilized or “ugly” spaces into something vibrant, exciting, and attractive. We are proud to support this competition that will allow locals to showcase and improve what they find valuable in their small town. All placemaking projects will take place in areas that are available to the public for the benefit of all!

 
Shawmut Community Center
Location: Shawmut, MT
Amount Awarded: $4,000
Along Highway 12 in Wheatland County is a tight knit community called Shawmut that is preserving a warehouse/lumber yard building that was moved next to the Shawmut school and rebuilt into a gym in the 1940's. After the Shawmut school closed in 2015, community members voted to refurbish the gym into a community center to host social gatherings, meetings, wedding receptions, class reunions, 4-H leadership and weed control updates, dances, craft fairs, and Wheatland County Precinct 3 primary and general elections. This grant will be used to continue the preservation and maintenance of the building by purchasing energy efficient window shades that will assist in improving facility temperature regulation and expand the times of year it is comfortable to gather in the center.

 
Liberty County Community Development Committee
Location: Chester, MT
Amount Awarded: $2,500
The Liberty County Community Development Committee was formed to create community events to bring folks together and attract others to enjoy their friendly community, in the heart of the Hi-Line. Our RAPF grant will go to support the production of the Hi-Line Harvest Festival – a free, one day, family-friendly festival in downtown Chester, Montana that will highlight their agricultural heritage and provide entertainment and activities for all ages.

Glacier Historical Museum
Location: Cut Bank, MT
Amount Awarded: $4,000
Glacier Historical Museum will be opening a reconstruction of Cut Bank's 1947 Point Drive-Inn. On selected summer days, the Point will be open for curb service with a limited menu of burgers, hot dogs, ice cream cones, sundaes, floats, sodas, shakes, malts, and bottled sodas, all offered for purchase at market prices. Funding from the Red Ants Pants Foundation will provide quality restaurant equipment to help them generate revenue for the museum, interpret the mid-1940’s and 1950’s, and reintroduce a forgotten, but cherished, Cut Bank tradition.

 
Glendive Chamber of Commerce & Agriculture
Location: Glendive, MT
Amount Awarded: $2,500
The Glendive Chamber of Commerce & Agriculture is dedicated to promoting business, tourism, quality of life, and economic development through local business alliances for Glendive, Dawson County, and surrounding area. Their rural community members love to come out for summer events with local food trucks and vendors. The Red Ants Pants Foundation Grant funds will help supply folding picnic tables and ambient light so that when community members attend these events, they have a place to sit, eat, and enjoy the experience. Their goal is to use the tables at numerous events throughout the entire year and become a staple for the community!

 
Winnett Agricultural Community Enhancement & Sustainability (ACES)
Location: Winnett, MT
Amount Awarded: $3,500
Serving ranchers and communities across the Musselshell Plains, locally led Winnett ACES works to strengthen their community by sustaining the health of their land, economy, and traditions for future generations. The core members of ACES share passions for agriculture, conservation, and making the communities of Central Montana resilient to what the future might bring. Through partnerships and dozens of primarily rancher volunteers, ACES strategically helps rural communities address the vitality issues that affect agricultural landscapes. The funding from the Red Ants Pants Foundation will support both the formal sharing of our community needs assessment with private property owners in Winnett and also create initiatives to contribute toward planning efforts that will help guide future growth and development of the rural community, which connects the working lands throughout Petroleum County.

 
Belt Valley Chamber of Commerce
Location:  Belt, MT
Grant Awarded:  $2,500
The Belt Valley Chamber of Commerce is a predominately businesswoman-led  Chamber serving other women-owned, small or home-based businesses and volunteer non-profits. They strive to bring people and economic vitality together by organizing events that foster a healthy community through shared work, enjoyment, and the offering of wholesome local produce and quality local products. The Red Ants Pants Foundation grant will support the Belt Summer Bash - a family-style carnival, vendor market, and nonprofit fundraising raffle that will be held in conjunction with Beltstock, a local music festival presented by a nonprofit partner-member. This event is designed to bring volunteers, residents, and families together to benefit from wholesome activities and entertainment, while also raising funds for seven nonprofit agencies that provide essential services to the greater Belt rural community.

 
About The Red Ants Pants Foundation
Founded by Sarah Calhoun, Red Ants Pants is a company dedicated to making workwear for women.
Having grown up on a farm and completed years of work leading trail crews and instructing for Outward Bound, she became fed up with the lack of workwear for women. So, she moved to Montana and started a business making work pants for women in 2006. Red Ants Pants is headquartered in White Sulphur Springs, Montana, and all products are Made in the USA.

To show support for the hard-working side of Montana and beyond, the Red Ants Pants Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3), was born in 2011. The Foundation supports women’s leadership, working family farms and ranches, and rural communities.