The Westmoreland Players, a Northern Neck-based community theater group, received grants totaling $17,500 from the Mason and Lula Cole Charitable Trust and the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

The Cole Charitable Trust provides grants to nonprofit organizations that serve the residents of the Northern Neck region, and supports organizations that span a wide range of community need. For many years, the Cole Trust has been a leading benefactor of the Westmoreland Players. The Cole Trust grant to the Westmoreland Players was in the amount of $15,000.

The $2,500 VCA grant was awarded competitively under its Arts Recovery Grant program, and is being supported through federal funding from the American Rescue Plan. The grant is to assist in the theater’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the theater to go dark for about 15 months in 2020 and 2021. The theater recently reopened with the production of “A Sanders Family Christmas,” a musical comedy that played to enthusia...