Mana Receives Mellon Foundation Grant to Continue Storytelling Initiatives in Alaska

September 24, 2025

Anchorage, Alaska — It brings us so much joy to share that Mana, fiscally sponsored by Umoja,  has received a Mellon Foundation grant to support Filipino American storytelling, culture, and community initiatives across Alaska. 

Mana aims to tell the history of Filipinos in Alaska and beyond by centering relationships and community first. True to our name — which is Tagalog for heritage, to inherit — our mission is to preserve stories for the next generation and empower others to document their own. “We have over 1,000 VHSs and DVDs we need to archive and preserve and I’m excited to dive into that,” exclaimed co-founder and storyteller Joshua Branstetter. “Not only will we honor our elders and communities across Alaska, but we will pass stories onto the next generation.”

At Mana, we are seeing firsthand the urgent need to preserve our culture through storytelling and establishing rich connections with elders before they are no longer with us. This Mellon Foundation grant will support travel, additional exhibits, and community workshops that will foster larger awareness and strengthen community connections for the next two years. 

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Mana is a multimedia collective that collects and documents generations through storytelling by sharing histories of Filipino Americans across Alaska. For more information about Mana and the space it’s creating in Alaska, visit www.manaalaska.com.