A Bucksport-based nonprofit working to catalog decades of news and other video footage has had its federal grant terminated as part of Department of Government Efficiency cuts.
Northeast Historic Film was notified about losing the grant in a letter sent shortly after midnight on April 2, according to Executive Director David Weiss, leaving the group with a $104,000 hole in its budget.
The original grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, made in 2023, was for $341,000. It was intended to fund the cataloging, digitizing and publishing the material Northeast Historic Film has collected from eight Maine TV collections over the past 35 years.
“Your grant no longer effectuates the agency’s needs and priorities. Your grant’s immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities,” the letter stated, according to Weiss. “The termination of your grant represents an urgent priority for the administration, and due to exceptional circumstances, adherence to the traditional notification process is not possible. Therefore, the NEH hereby terminates your grant in its entirety effective April 2, 2025.”
“We believe the project had merit and it will be a shame if we cannot complete it,” said Weiss in a statement.
He noted that seven of the archives staff work on the project “and the termination yanks out a piece of every paycheck.”
This project aimed to publish 7,822 videotapes and 306,800 feet of 16 mm film from 1953 to 2008. The collection features both national and local footage.
“Local television news stories are invaluable documents of American life during the second half of the 20th century, a time of profound change,” Weiss said.
The termination of Northeast Historic Film’s grant is part of sweeping cuts ordered earlier this month by DOGE, including potentially canceling all grants made under the Biden administration that weren’t fully paid out, according to The New York Times.
