It's the final day of summer camp at the June Bug Center, and a roomful of young musicians are tuning up for a recital.
Two mandolin players, three guitarists, and a pair of fiddlers join their two instructors in a rendition of "Forked Deer," an old-time dance tune. They're part of Floyd JAMS. That stands for Junior Appalachian Musicians. It's a program that teaches young people how to play banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and guitar.
But as instructor Ash Watkins explains to families, it also gives them tools they can use throughout their lives.
"I just don't want to lose sight of the fact that this music is about community," Watkins says. "Learning to play the guitar, to sit down on the couch and strum a song and sing along, or learn some fiddle to play with your neighbor who plays a banjo, pick a tune on the porch. These are the most important things about the music, and this is why we teach it... It's about connection, and community."
Floyd JAMS is just one of the programs offered at the nonprofit June Bug Center for Arts and Education. Others include computer coding, theater, robotics, and dance. Last year, it saw record enrollment, with more than 400 students. That includes 137 who received scholarships.
But federal funding cuts by President Trump are making things difficult.
"The cuts that affect the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, we are going to see impact from that, unfortunately," says Joanne Woodward, the June Bug Center's executive director. "They fund everything from our music programs to our theater programs and our steam programs. Basically, A to Z, everything we do."
The June Bug doesn't directly receive many federal grants. But it partners with a variety of organizations that do, including Virginia Humanities. The nonprofit state humanities council lost $1.7 million it received from the National Endowment for the Humanities, says executive director Matthew Gibson. It laid off a quarter of its staff, and has reduced the number and size of grants it makes to organizations like the June Bug Center.
"Without that it's harder for us to do the larger fundraising work that we do, which all bleeds into our programs, supporting our staff, [and] supporting organizations like the June Bug Center," Gibson says.
And places like the June Bug are important for community cohesion.
"We live in a time that is more and more disconnected," Gibson says. "We're alienated from one another. The work I see that we do is actually connect people to ourselves, to remind us of our humanity. It connects people to one another. And it connects people to place."
Woodward says the June Bug Center is still figuring out what this means going forward. The center already leans on local support and community partnerships, and those will become even more important.
"We're not sure exactly what we're going to be facing," Woodward says. "There's still a lot of parts that are up in the air unclear to a lot of us at this point. I think the first thing you learn as a director is to learn to pivot, and this is a wonderful time to learn to practice that."
The June Bug Center is currently enrolling students for its fall after-school programs. They begin in September.
