# September 2025 American Folklife Center Community Collections Grants Symposium: Session 1

In September 2025, the American Folklife Center (AFC) held a three-day symposium to celebrate awardees of the Community Collection Grant (CCG) program and their documentation projects. In session one (of six), Nicki Saylor (Director, American Folklife Center) gives introductory comments about the symposium. Folklorist Ashley Minner Jones presents about her research among elders of the Lumbee community in East Baltimore, Maryland. Aarti Mehta-Kroll and Rebecca Friedman, of Florida Atlantic University, describe their work documenting the Goombay Festival of Miami’s Bahamian community. Session one concludes with a Q&A among the presenters, moderated by Martha Gonzalez (Board of Trustees, American Folklife Center). The Community Collections Grants program is a core component for the Library of Congress’ Of the People: Widening the Path initiative, supported by the Mellon Foundation. Since 2022, the American Folklife Center has supported twenty-nine CCG projects, enabling community members to document contemporary music, dance, crafts, food traditions, community celebrations and sacred events in communities across a range of geographical contexts in the United States.

- Kind: Talk
- Year: 2025
- Runtime: 1 h 13 min
- By: Saylor, Nicole
- Archive: [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/video-11252/)
- Licence or status: Rights statement at the Library of Congress (as the archive states it)
- Credit: Library of Congress
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/loc/video-11252?play=1)