Heritage Harbor Foundation Announces Grants for 2018 Totaling $127,000

On February 14, 2018, Dr. Patrick T. Conley, president of the Heritage Harbor Foundation, announced that the Foundation has awarded $127,000 in grant money for 2018 to twelve local organizations. The purpose of the grants is to support projects aimed at increasing the awareness of Rhode Island adults and school-age students of their historical, ethnic, and cultural heritage.

• The Warwick Historical Society was awarded $5,000 towards the cost of the publication of the book The Warwick Railroad and Villages Along the Way.
• The Providence Foundation was awarded $15,000 for the restoration of bronze plaques on the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Downtown Providence.

The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Downtown Providence, dedicated in 1871, will have its bronze plaques refurbished. It has been moved twice, and is now behind the bus station at the intersection of Dorrence and Fulton streets near the Providence City Hall (Sanford Neuschatz Collection)

• The Rhode Island Historical Society received a grant of $10,000 towards the cost of the documentary film Divine Providence: The Remaking of an American City by filmmaker Salvatore Mancini.
• The Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame received $15,000 in support of the preservation of its historic aircraft and the construction of aviation displays.
• The Rhode Island Council on the Humanities was awarded $10,000 for the next phase of its online application “Rhode Tour” relating to the state’s historical sites and history.
• The Pettaquamscutt Historical Society (now The South County History Center) received $5,000 for the archival processing of the Mars Collection of photographs of the Narragansett Indian Tribe.
• Southeast New England Film, Music and Arts Festival was awarded $10,000 towards the cost of the documentary film Slatersville: America’s First Mill Village by filmmaker Christian de Rezendes.
• The Rhode Island Institute for Labor Studies and Research received a grant of $7,500 for its Leadership for a Future (LFAF) program to educate labor leaders concerning the state’s history, culture, economics, and politics.
• The Chinese Historical Society of New England was awarded $10,500 for an exhibition on Providence’s early 20th century Chinatown.
• The Independence Trail Educational Foundation, directed by restauranteur Robert Burke, was awarded $14,000 for its outreach program.
• Waterspill Junction received a grant of $15,000 to develop the script for the drama Sally: A Black Woman’s Voyage from Africa to Enslavement dealing with the Rhode Island slave trade.
• The Laotian Community Center of Rhode Island was awarded $10,000 to develop its project, The Stories of Us: The Lao Community in Rhode Island.

The Heritage Harbor Foundation is the outgrowth of a movement begun in the 1980s to create Rhode Island’s own state history museum. Rhode Island is one of only four states without such an institution. In 2007 the museum was at an 80% development point in the former Narragansett Electric South Street power station (now the state nursing school) when the dramatic downturn in the economy and the change in the state’s historic tax credit program caused its development partner, Struever Brothers, Eccles, and Rouse of Baltimore, to withdraw.

One Heritage Harbor Foundation award went towards the cost of a documentary film, Slatersville: America’s First Mill Village (Sanford Neuschatz Collection)

Unable to continue its museum course, Heritage Harbor Corporation used its dual identity and switched from museum to foundation. A clause in its deed from Narragansett Electric Company enabled it to sell its easement and interest in the building and use the proceeds to establish a grant-making endowment to carry out its mission and promises to donors. The multi-million dollar endowment, created through the efforts of Museum and Heritage Harbor Foundation president, Dr. Patrick T. Conley, is lodged at the Rhode Island Foundation.

By seeking applications from other museums and historical groups willing to carry out the thematic fields which would have been museum exhibits, the Heritage Harbor Foundation is meeting the intent and wishes of its many donors. The fundamental aim of the Heritage Harbor project has been to feature history programs of such an inclusive nature that all Rhode Islanders can see their own history celebrated and thus be encouraged to participate fully in the state’s civic life.

The photo shows the old Washington County Jail in Kingston, which houses the South County History Center, which received a grant for the archival processing of the Kenneth Mars Collection of photographs of the Narragansett Indian Tribe

In addition to its outright (but monitored) grants to an array of non-profit Rhode Island historical and cultural organizations, the Heritage Harbor Foundation has also currently undertaken the creation and sponsorship of other projects in partnership with a select number of cultural community organizations. These projects, now totaling over $60,000 in funding, will be announced as they occur.

Inquiries for more information about the Foundation’s grant program should be addressed to the Heritage Harbor Foundation, 1445 Wampanoag Trail, Suite #201, Attention: Russell J. DeSimone, Grants Committee Chairman.

The website link for the Heritage Harbor Foundation is here:  https://heritageharborfoundation.org/