At its July 2019 meeting, the Maryland Heritage Area Authority awarded $5,000.000 to capital and non- Capital grants. Grants awarded from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority (MHAA) fund historic preservation, natural resource protection, and educational programs in 13 designated Heritage Areas. Grant funds support heritage tourism projects and activities that expand economic development and tourism-related job creation in 21 counties and the city of Baltimore.
Projects in the Stories of the Chesapeake, the heritage area for Caroline, Kent, Queen Anne’s, and Talbot counties received a total of $755, 178. In addition to the local heritage area management grant of $33,000 and a block grant of $25,000, local projects include:
Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum – Exhibition Building
CBMM’s Board of Governors recently approved a Master Plan to help secure CBMM’s capital development and future for the next 20 years. The Plan calls for a multi-phased capital project that enhance the guest experience, including a new exhibition building, welcome center, education building, small craft heritage center, and shipyard shed, as well as expanded parking, upgraded facilities, and landscaping throughout campus. This grant provides funding for the construction of the new Exhibition Building.
Federalsburg – 1937 Cabin Restoration
The project is to restore the 1937 Log Cabin that received the Secretary of the Interior’s designation as a national historic structure. The committee noted that Federalsburg received a FY19 small grant to place an interpretive panel at the site of the cabin. Restoration of this historic structure would allow interpretation of depression era programs and their impact on small rural communities.
Friends of Wye Mills, Inc. – Comprehensive Interpretation
Friends of Wye Mills will develop a comprehensive Interpretation Plan to revision the site’s interpretation strategy and propose thoroughly considered revised space allocation; collections usage; and key interpretive products: demonstrations, exhibits, guided tours, printed materials, and school programming – all geared to engaging publics and connecting visitor experience to the unique qualities of the site.
Kent County Arts Council- Raimond Building Renovation Phase II
Kent County Arts Council requests funding for the 1790 building that serves as its headquarters on Spring Ave. in Chestertown. After renovation, the building will include gallery, performance spaces, an artistry in residence program, and ultimately a center for arts, humanities, and cultural interpretation in the region.
Historical Society of Kent County – Saving the Bordley History Center
The Bordley History Center faces structural issues. The rear brick facade is in danger of falling off. In addition, the front facade must be stabilized with basement framing repairs, to address water permeating the upper front brick facade, which in turn has caused an interior, lateral wooden support to rot (behind the Center’s sign) and the museum’s window exhibit cases to leak. As a second phase, the historical society will upgrade the lighting of the window exhibit cases and add decorative period trim to the front entryway, lighting for our sign, and an awning and light at the Cross-Street entrance.
Mary Edwardine Bourke Emory Foundation Inc. – Bloomfield Structure Repairs
This grant involves a request to begin structural repair of a corner collapse of Bloomfield House that is needed to stabilize the house. In 2008 it was hit by an earthquake. The corner collapsed while still supporting 2 floors above. As of Summer, 2018 this area was secured with a steel plate and steel rods. This work is the urgent phase of structural repair. The next phase involves chimney repair at this same end of the building.
Queen Anne’s County Office of Tourism – Chesapeake Heritage and Visitor Center Redesign
Queen Anne’s County Department of Economic & Tourism Development plan to remodel the lobby of the visitor center would serve to enhance experience of all visitors. The first phase of the project is remodeling the lobby area, the second phase of the project is to hire a curator to collect and inventory of the exhibit items in the Chesapeake Legacy museum (immediately adjacent to the lobby.) The third and final leg of the project is to enhance and update every exhibition in the museum.
St. Michaels Museum at St. Mary’s Square – Teetotum Building and Chaney House
The MHAA grant will be used to provide a new cedar shake roof and addition for the Teetotum building. A 406 sq. ft addition will be added to the rear of the TeeTotum building incorporating a handicap bathroom. The new addition will house the museum offices, additional storage, a location for temporary new exhibits, house the museum’s research library for the public use in St Michaels research for families and houses for white and African American research as well as commercial research. There will be space for small museum meetings and historical research.
The Chaney House built by the free African American Chaney Bros in 1851, free of the museum office and research library, will be developed into a living history of how free African Americans lived in St. Michaels prior to, during, and after the Civil War.
Sultana Education Foundation – Lawrence Wetland Preserve
The Sultana Education Foundation (SEF) will develop a new urban wetland and nature preserve in Chestertown to serve as an adjunct facility to SEF’s Holt Education Center. The Lawrence Wetlands Preserve (LWP) will consist of 8.5 acres of property featuring a combination of forest, wetlands, meadows, swamp, and a one-acre pond, making it ideal for SEF’s nature and heritage-based programs. Over the next three years, SEF will improve the property by enlarging and restoring various natural habitats on the site and providing environmentally sensitive public access in the form of trails, boardwalks, and low-impact structures.
The Avalon Foundation, Inc. -The Avalon Theatre 2nd Century
The Avalon Foundation developed a Master Plan for the building which incorporates input from a building needs assessment and an extensive stakeholder listening process. The project is a multi-year, capital investment in the Avalon Theatre building intended to address public safety, repairs as well as make improvements to the technical infrastructure and configuration of the building to improve audience experience, capacity, and operational efficiency. Improved capacity, better audience experience and more diverse programming not only results in a more sustainable operational model for the Foundation but functions as an even greater economic anchor for businesses in downtown Easton. The MHAA grant will provide new seating in the theater.
Washington College – Chesapeake Heartland Project
Washington College, partnering with the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), Sumner Hall, Kent County Arts Council, and Kent County Public Library, will help residents preserve and share artifacts and stories related to the area’s African American history via an interactive website, digital archive, exhibitions, oral history, and public programs. With MHAA funds, Washington College will purchase and customize a community outreach truck to include digitization equipment, a traveling oral history studio, and exhibition capacity.
Waterfowl Chesapeake -Waterfowl Festival Groundwork and Audience Development
Waterfowl Chesapeake just completed the 48th annual Waterfowl Festival in November 2018 and is now looking toward not only the 2019 Festival but our 50th anniversary in 2020. As the festival prepares for the 50th, they would like to lay the groundwork for creating a value-added experience for visitors by better understanding community engagement levels, measuring our economic and cultural impact on the region, improving our digital presence and engagement of a younger demographic, and kick-starting interpretive planning approaches for each of our venues. This foundational work provides valuable support for ensuring the sustainability of the Festival into the future.
Grants will also fund Museum on Mainstreet Projects including the Oxford project and a virtual reality tour of the Underground Railroad Scenic Byway.
Congratulations to the FY20 grant recipients. It is not too early to plan for the FY21 grant applications.