Nonprofit history keepers Claremont Heritage recently received grants totaling $17,500 from the Eastside Arts Initiative and National Trust for Historic Preservation to aid in its mission to document, preserve, and share the region’s cultural heritage.

The Eastside Arts Initiative awarded $7,500 to fund “The Mexican Serenade Revisited,” a project meant to capture oral histories and create a digital archive of materials related to the Mexican Players of the Padua Hills Theatre, described by Heritage in a news release as “the longest-running Mexican American theater troupe in the United States.”

The $10,000 National Trust for Historic Preservation grant will go toward its “Preserving Claremont’s Route 66 Cultural Heritage” initiative, which will document and interpret stories from underrepresented groups— Latinx, immigrant, Black, Asian American, women, and working-class communities — along Claremont’s stretch of Route 66, or Foothill Boulevard.