Trustees from the Asbury United Methodist Church in Kent County

Every year I look forward to July when I join my colleagues from the National Trust to spend two days traveling the Eastern Shore conducting applicant site visits for the Bartus Trew Providence Preservation Fund.  This grant fund is unique in that it was created specifically to fund preservation projects on the Eastern Shore of Maryland – beginning on this side of the C& D Canal all the way to Somerset.  This year brought some great applications on a variety of projects ranging from church restorations to archeology to the restoration of one of the last remaining African American Civil War veterans posts.

Board members from Historic Easton along with Nell Ziehl and Marla Collum from the National Trust

Being ‘in the field’ is fundamental to my work and something I truly love especially when you’re helping to provide needed funding to ready hands.  At every site you find people passionately devoted to their project, the cause and their story. These places matters to them and not for reasons that bring any kind of personal gain other than knowing that they have made a difference and paid homage to a part of our heritage that’s worth safe guarding. You could say that there is a little bit of immortality in it; a personal investment that carries on when a building continues to stand tall, a discovery is made or a story continues to be told because of these efforts.

Bartus Trew grant awards range from $5000 to $25,000 and are available to public agencies, 501 (c) (3) and other nonprofit organizations.   In these days of funding shortages and program cutting, this is an incredible resource for heritage resources here on the Shore.  The awards have been used for a variety of important projects from the restoration of historic skipjacks, to the acquisition of threatened properties to the development of a training program for historic district commissions.  I encourage you to give some thought to how these funds could assist a project that is of interest to you! Stay tuned for news of the grant award winners this year when they’re announced in August.

For more information on the Bartus Trew Providence Preservation Fund, please visit this link:

http://www.preservationnation.org/resources/find-funding/documents/trew-guidelines-eligibility-1.html

-          Elizabeth Beckley