Friday night May 2, 2025, at around 9pm eastern time, we officially received word that Rancho Alegre would be denied the $10,000 Challenge America grant that we were offered to support this year's Rancho Alegre Conjunto Music Festival. 

We wrote about how we may be affected back in February and anticipated this happening, but we hadn't received a definitive answer until Friday. We anticipated this happening and reduced our budget significantly for this year's festival, and booked fewer bands. Nevertheless, in good faith, we acknowledged the National Endowment for the Arts in all of our marketing materials and at the event, just in case the grant did come through. 

What's next? 

We're doing what we always do. We fight. 

You can support us by making a donation and/or by contacting your elected representatives and telling them this is NOT okay.