Good afternoon from Michigan Humanities!

As many of you likely know, our National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) funding was cut by DOGE in April. Due to the termination of critical funds, several of our grant opportunities and programs have been paused. Thanks to ongoing private support, the 2025–26 Great Michigan Read program—featuring Curtis Chin’s Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant—is set to launch this fall in late October and conclude in late August 2026. Online registration opened last week, and we have a new partner structure that will help us maximize our program resources.

There are two ways to be a 2025–26 GMR partner organization:

• Lending organizations will receive a book kit at the time of program launch in October. Each kit will come in a GMR tote bag and include copies of Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant, conversation starters, promotional materials, and a partner guide with links to digital resources. The materials will be yours to use and distribute throughout the program period—late October 2025 through late August 2026. During that time frame, kits should largely be available for check-out by other local community partners. We are leaning on our lending partners to help us make the most of the printed books we have access to this year and build community awareness for the program. If you’re interested, please complete our online form by September 30, 2025. Then, I’ll be in touch with next steps for you to register as a lending partner.

• If you are interested in reading Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant in your local community and prefer not to serve as a lending partner, we invite you to register through our online form as a participating partner. Once lending partner locations are established, you will receive information about locations in your part of the state where you can check out a book kit. It is our goal to establish lending partnerships in every county to ensure continued statewide access to the GMR program.

Both participating and lending partners will have an opportunity to express interest in co-hosting a GMR author event with Curtis Chin. Curtis will be traveling to approximately 10 locations across Michigan in the fall and spring.

I’m sure that many of you have questions about the partnership logistics and other program details. We’re hosting a GMR program information session tomorrow, September 3 at 10 a.m. ET. There’s still time to register here. A recording will be sent out afterward to info session registrants.

You can learn more about other recent Michigan Humanities developments via our recent info session recording and resource page, and further information about national funding news via this article from the Federation of State Humanities Councils.

We appreciate your patience as we developed an updated plan for the upcoming GMR program and look forward to working with you this year!

Katie

Katie Wittenauer (she/her)

Director of Programs | kwittenauer@mihumanities.org | LinkedIn

Connecting, Sharing, Growing

Michigan Humanities

2364 Woodlake Drive, Suite 100

Okemos, MI 48864

517-372-7770, ext. 294

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Mission: Bringing people together through stories, histories, cultures, and conversations.