Riverview receives local History Grant
Huron Riverview UMC was a 2016 recipient of a $500 Warren Kuhler Memorial Grant from the Commission on Archives and History.
Photo: A member of the Huron Riverview choir stops to look at historical displays in the church’s fellowship hall. An additional 20 panels such as these will be purchased with a grant from the conference Commission on Archives and History. Applications are available for more matching grants, up to $500 per church.
The church used the grant to purchase an additional 20 display panels. These poster-sized panels are mounted to showcase photos and other documentary history of the church. This project makes the history of the church accessible. The additional panels which the grant helped provide augment those which were mounted in observation of the church’s 50th anniversary on June 26, 2016.
The local church matched the grant with more than $340 of its own funds in addition to in-kind donations by committee members. If the mounting of material in the first panels is any indication, filling the additional 20 will also involve several volunteer hours.
In observation of the church’s anniversary, a four-person local church history committee, called the Historical Angels, gathered supplies and located stored photographs and documents before mounting them in the first of the display panels. Together they donated between 20 and 50 hours of volunteer labor for the project.
These panels are mounted in a rack on a wall of the church fellowship hall. They are mounted in a layered fashion so that together they look like a huge photo album.
“It was agreed among the committee that all the time involved was worth it from the positive feedback received,” said Peggy Eckmann, chairwoman of the Historical Angels. “The attendees expressed appreciation of the readily available historical information they could enjoy with minimal effort and searching.”
The committee continues to meet twice a month and are beginning to determine which current events need to be documented for historical preservation.
This is just one example of how the conference uses apportionment dollars to equip local churches in their efforts to preserve local church history and make it accessible. Through the Warren Kuhler Memorial Grants, your Conference Commission on Archives and History makes available up to $2,000 each year for matching grants to local churches.
These mission-initiative grants are available to chartered, mission and union churches currently serving United Methodists within the Dakotas Conference to assist in preserving and interpreting their local histories and making their stories accessible to support their disciple-making, world-transforming mission.
The grants not only fund specific projects, such as Riverview’s, but also support on-going ministry that preserves, interprets and/or brings public access to the local church’s history. To be eligible, the local church must elect a local church historian and provide a local match of cash and/or in-kind contributions. Applications are available on the conference website under the “Forms and Resources,” which is found under the “Forms” tab. Or stop by the Archives and History display booth at Annual Conference and pick up a paper copy. There is no particular deadline. Successful grantees are awarded funds on a funds-available basis.
The grants are named for the late Warren Kuhler, who served for several years on the conference Commission on Archives and History both before and after the 1994 merger. Kuhler was elected and served as conference lay leader for several years. His lay membership was held at Wakonda United Methodist Church, where he served as local church lay leader for more than 60 years.
