In response to complaints that it was ignoring the needs of the South Jersey arts community, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts launched a special program in 1987.

The Southern New Jersey Arts Initiative, which was funded in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, provided $2.88 million for staffing and new projects.

Funding for the initiative peaked at $595,000 in 1989 and dropped to $133,800 in 1998. The program ended that year after the NEA grants ran out.

Some southern arts leaders contend the initiative ended before it could serve the emerging groups that need help now.

In the early years, South Jersey groups harvested a rich crop of new programs from the initiative.

Virginia Steel of the Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts credits funding from the initiative with launching Stedman Gallery's educational outreach program. Today that program has expanded to include performing arts and distance learning. Altogether, the educational programs reach 16,000 schoolchildren.

Alan Willoughby, executive director of the Perkins Center for the Arts in Moorestown, says an initiative grant helped Perkins add a marketing position to its staff. That extra staffer generated crucial new funding for Perkins from corporations and foundations.

With the help of a grant from the arts initiative, Appel Farm Arts and Music Center launched an outdoor arts and music festival in Elmer, Salem County, in 1989. The first festival drew 800 people to the farm.

A decade later, the 12th annual festival drew 12,500 people from along the Eastern Seaboard.

"The festival has put us on the map," says Executive Director Mark Packer.

"It's paid all kinds of dividends for us."