Now through Aug. 9, five small Detroit arts organizations are vying for the Knight Arts Challenge People’s Choice Award, offering a $20,000 prize. Below, Richard Wohlfeil of nominee LO & Behold! Records & Books, talks about why his group should get your vote. To see the other nominees and to text to vote, visit knightarts.org/peopleschoice.

Q. Why should your group win the People’s Choice Award? A. This small shop, that is our storefront and the books and music we’ve printed and published for people over the past few years, began with nothing. We’ve never had a start-up business loan, a public or private grant, nor a strong enough economy in our city to bring in enough customers needed to keep a place like LO & BEHOLD! financially alive. Our immediate community, myself included, is not rich in the pocket. However, our neighbors remain so rich in spirit and give so much strength and love to the art, music and literature this place creates and provides, that I continue to wear myself down, working odd jobs before and after shop hours and donating my personal record and book collection to the shop to keep up on bills. Although my physical and personal resources (laboring 12+ hours a day and donating most of my possessions to the shop) are running thin, I somehow retain the strength to keep on going. Neighboring businesses, musicians, artists, the local down-and-out-day-drunk, police officers, strange record collectors from Europe, the local fire department, to the mayor of Hamtramck have all commented and continue to state what a positive force LO & BEHOLD! has been on revitalizing Hamtramck / Detroit by providing an outlet for local and non-art, music and literature to showcase works, offering my space for local organizations to host benefits or meetings, even letting a new bike shop operate out of our small space until they find a storefront of their own. Seeing a positive, physical change in our community is what gives me the strength to keep going, the affirmations of our neighborhood spirit, and the love and goodwill of beautiful people surrounding us is what keeps me pushing forward.

Q. What would you do with the $20,000 prize?

A. The $20,000 prize would be the perfect jump I need to catch LO & BEHOLD! up on bills, debts and help push through a few projects that have been waiting at the printers for their final payments the past few months. But most importantly, this money would help me to fix up the place a bit, to build better record bins and shelving, repaint the place and do many of the little things one needs to do with a new space that I’ve never had the funding to do. This prize will also help me replace a computer of mine that was stolen that carried many of my writings over the last few years.

Q. What excites you most about the creative momentum in Detroit?

A. What excites me most is the fact that someone like me, who doesn’t come from money, couldn’t afford to finish college, doesn’t have a credit card and will never be approved for a loan, can afford an opportunity to start a used record and book store, publication house and record label, while continuing to be an active artist / musician myself, and start it all with nothing. No rich uncle, no business or start-up loans, nothing… just hard work and a cheap place to operate in. This is a place where a working class artist can make their own way, start their own gallery, restore a house, help build a new community and make what they want to make without pandering to the concepts of a private art school or the backings of investors without vision. The playing field is leveled and the most independently DIY projects can stand next to those with the most funding or those most aided by academia, and all be seen for together, all in the context of this strange landscape that doesn’t care for its own, let alone what any of us might make. What of this will pass and what will survive? It’s up to the people to decide.

To see all Knight Arts Challenge People’s Choice Award nominees and to learn how to vote, visit knightarts.org/peopleschoice.