National Heritage Area Awards Grants to Local Organizations

WEST VIRGINIA (WVDN) – Appalachian Forest National Heritage Area (AFNHA) announced that it has awarded $201,972 in grants to 15 area organizations through the second year of its Appalachian Forest Grants program. These projects will support preservation, interpretation, and tourism development projects by government and non-profits partners throughout the region. This year’s grant program emphasized projects related to collections management, America250 stories, and Indigenous Appalachians. These projects are expected to produce an additional $265,000 in matching and leveraged funds in local communities.

Awarded projects include:

• Arthurdale Heritage – Homestead Barn Rehabilitation
• Evergreen Heritage Center – Forest Evolution Trail Workshops and Tours
• Experience Learning – The power of place, forest heritage and mountain stewardship
• Friends of Blackwater – Early Mining Voices
• Future Generations University – Anderson House Preservation Plan
• Greenbrier River Trail Foundation – Greenbrier River Trail: Origin Stories Shared and Archived
• Hardy County Convention & Visitors Bureau – Higgins House Museum & Hardy County Travel Information Center
• High Rocks Educational Corporation – Richwood Building Repairs
• Historic Beverly Preservation – Building Beverly, Building the Nation
• Passages of the Western Potomac Heritage Area – Augmented Reality: Allegany County Virtual History Tour
• Town of Bath – Rebuild and Enhancement of the Town of Bath municipal website
• West Virginia University Research Corporation – Scholarship for International Festival of Flutes
• Wills Creek Museum – Creating Home: The Indigenous Peoples of Allegany County
• Woodlands Community Lenders – Lost Towns Network
• Yew Mountain Center – Indigenous Voices on the Mountain Medicine Trail

The awards range from $3,000 to $20,000 and will fund projects in Allegany, Greenbrier, Hardy, Morgan, Nicholas, Pendleton, Pocahontas, Preston, Randolph, and Tucker counties. These grants were made possible by funding from the National Park Service’s Heritage Partnership Program. AFNHA is a member of the National Heritage Area System.

The Appalachian Forest National Heritage Area conserves, interprets, and promotes forest heritage to enhance landscapes and communities in the highlands of West Virginia and Maryland. AFNHA works with partners to accomplish this through community development, conservation, celebrating cultural heritage, and creating opportunities for transformational experiences. To learn more, see www.appalachianforestnha.org.

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