PORTLAND — The Maine Humanities Council has received a grant of $34,300 from the Pulitzer Prize Centennial Campfires Initiative. The award will fund a special grant category for Maine-based organizations seeking to use Pulitzer Prize-winning writing, journalism, photography, drama or music composition in their 2016 programming. The awards will range from $500 to $10,000.

The Pulitzer Prize Centennial Campfires Initiative will generate grassroots events and conversations across the country throughout 2016 about the impact of journalism and the humanities on our lives and times, illuminating their value to public life today and imagining their future.

“We intend to reach diverse audiences, using Campfire events to foster invigorating discussions – much as actual campfires create circles of conversation – both in person and through social media,” said Joyce Dehli, Pulitzer Prize Board member and chairwoman of the Campfires Initiative. “We also hope to inspire new generations of practitioners.”

The Pulitzer Prize Board developed the initiative with the Federation of State Humanities Councils. It is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Columbia University, which is home to the Pulitzers.

The initiative’s name was inspired by James L. Carey, late professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, who, as the New York Times reported in his obituary, considered journalism “our collective campfire storytelling.”