Maine Folklife Center in Orono Receives Save Our History Grant from The History Channel
Contact: David Lee, Edelman Entertainment for the History Channel, 212-642-7718
Lowe’s Home Improvement, American Express and Local Cable Affiliates Team with The History Channel Save Our History Program to Support Third Year of Innovative Educational Projects
Center Leads Students in the History of the Pulp and Paper Industry
NEW YORK — The History Channel today awarded the The Maine Folklife Center at the University of Maine in Orono, Maine with a $10,000 Save Our History grant to study how the loss of the town’s paper mill affected the workers and community. Maine Folklife Center is one of 27 history organizations that will receive Save Our History community preservation grants. These will fund innovative, educational projects designed to bring communities together, actively engage children in the preservation of their local history and communicate the importance of saving local history for future generations.
The History Channel, with the counsel of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA), created the Save Our History Grant Program as an extension of the Save Our History philanthropic initiative and is committed to inspiring and motivating local communities to learn about and take an active role in the preservation of their past through projects involving artifacts, oral histories, sites, museums or landmarks that exist in their own neighborhoods.
Since founding the National Grant Program, The History Channel has received funding requests exceeding $13.4 million from history organizations representing 50 states and the District of Columbia. To date, The History Channel, together with its sponsors, has contributed nearly $750,000 in grant funding toward this cause.
Students from Brewer Middle School, led by the Maine Folklife Center, will study the history of the pulp and paper industry in Maine, and how the ultimate loss of this industry profoundly affected the workers and the community as a whole. With a focus on the Eastern Fine Paper mill in Brewer, students will conduct oral histories with former workers and community members about the mill’s impact on their lives both during its operation and after its closing. Students will develop a website, create a timeline of the mill, and write a storyline of the papermaking process. Finally, students will help create history boxes filled with objects, documents and photos relating to the mill with lesson plans that will travel to schools around the state.
The 2006-2007 grant recipients represent the many diverse and historically significant events, sites and people that make up more than four centuries of American history in 27 communities. Projects range from tracing local immigration and contributions to the civil rights movement to protests at the White House and preservation of a Revolutionary War forge used by officers and soldiers under George Washington.
The History Channel is also awarding Save Our History grants to historic organizations in Allentown, Pa.; Atlanta, Ga; Austin, Texas; Baltimore, Md.; Birmingham, Ala.; Deadwood, S.D.; Glasco, Kan.; Holyoke, Mass.; Hunt Valley, Md.; Indianapolis, Ind.; Jefferson, Ga.; Kampsville, Ill.; Lake Orion, Mich.; Laramie, Wyo,; Madison, N.J.; Pensacola, Fla.; Princeton, Ky.; San Diego, Calif.; Sharpsburg, Md.; Washington, D.C.; Woodstock, Vt.; two separate organizations in St. Paul, Minn.; and two separate organizations in Seattle, Wash.