St. Mary's College of Maryland Professor of Anthropology Julia King, in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR), Chesapeake Conservancy, and the state-recognized Rappahannock Tribe of Virginia, have been awarded a $240,000 grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities to trace the history and development of the Rappahannock Indians in early American history (200-1850 AD). The grant was one of 245 humanities projects from across the country awarded a combined $39.3 million from the NEH. Competition for these grants is rigorous, with a 14 percent success rate.

"Thanks to the NEH grant, we will be able to start addressing some of the recommendations from the original study we conducted in 2016," King said. "We hope to assemble a detailed culture history for the Rappahannock Indians in the river valley over the last 2000 years, including archaeological collections-based analysis and a regional survey."
 

There are few resources other than DARE and projects like Vaux’s Cambridge Online Survey of World Englishes that are taking the time to not only track new regionalisms across the U.S., but safeguard the local words and phrases whose usage is dwindling ― from Gullah words on the southern coasts to Mormon and Amish sayings in the heartland to Spanish-infused speech in the American Southwest. Due to lack of funding, Hall says that DARE will be winding down its services by the end of the year. Any future funding ― be it from federal agencies like the National Endowment for the Humanities or private foundations like the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation ― will be used to continue to update the digital version of DARE, but the organization will cease plans to continue its fieldwork and in-person research.