U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kan., has helped secure $80,000 in funding from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for area arts projects.

Details about each of the grants and recipients appear below:

• Van Go Mobile Arts will receive $10,000 for its Summer Benchmark project, an ongoing program in which at-risk youth learn design, painting and life skills while painting benches commissioned by city businesses and individuals. The funding was awarded through the NEA’s Challenge America: Serving Every Community program, which provides greater support for arts projects in underserved communities.
• A $10,000 grant to the Lawrence Arts Center will support the development and touring of several plays for young audiences, including “The Ant and the Grasshopper,” “Amelia Earhart: First Lady of Flight” and “The Diary of Anne Frank.” Ann Evans, arts center director, will oversee the funding.
• The Kansas University Center for Research has been awarded a $20,000 grant for “Conflict and Creativity,” a series of performances and community conversations that will explore the impact of political and social turmoil upon young foreign artists from China, Israel, Ireland and Cuba.
• The center also will receive $40,000 in NEA funding for the touring exhibition “Aaron Douglas and the Harlem Renaissance,” and its accompanying education programs. Douglas (1899-1979) is considered to be one of the foremost visual artists to emerge during the flourishing artistic activity in New York’s Harlem area during the 1920s.