Funding grant could be 'huge' for Halifax's smallest museums
Marina von Stackelberg | CBC News | Posted: June 3, 2018 10:52 AM | Last Updated: June 3, 2018
Proposed municipal money could mean big changes for community museums struggling to stay afloat
More than a dozen of the Halifax Regional Municipality's smallest museums could soon get a financial boost if city council votes in favour of a new temporary grant program Tuesday.
If approved, the grant would provide from several thousand dollars to upwards of $15,000 in consistent annual funding for HRM's community museums — many of them rural — that are struggling to stay afloat.
"It's a huge amount of money ... that will make an unbelievable difference to what we do," said Thea Wilson-Hammond, executive director of the Lake Charlotte Area Heritage Society.
Her group owns and operates Memory Lane Heritage Village and the Eastern Shore Archives, documenting and detailing the lives of people along the eastern shore in the 1940s.
Even a few thousand dollars of consistent funding a year would completely change the makeup of many museums in the area, Wilson-Hammond said.
She's been fighting to get secure funding for Halifax's community museums for more than five years. Currently, local museums receive varying levels of financial support from the city, and some don't get any money at all.
"It now creates an inequitable situation when you look at comparing museums across the board within the municipality."
While major museums in Halifax also receive federal and provincial dollars, HRM's community museums are often left to fend for themselves, she said.
One-time grants are often available for the bricks and mortar of a museum, but it's much harder to secure funding for day-to-day operations.
"Often we're waiting till the end of April or early May to know if we can even open our doors," she said.
Often we're waiting till the end of April or early May to know if we can even open our doors. - Thea Wilson-Hammond, Lake Charlotte Area Heritage Society
"So it becomes very challenging, because yes, you need a roof. But also you need to develop programming. It makes it very hard to pick and choose."
Funds for utilities, marketing, archiving
According to a staff report, the museums could use the grant money for rent payments, utilities, and office supplies.
But funds could also be put toward the conservation of artifacts, marketing, or hiring a summer employee.
Wilson-Hammond said that could be a game changer for museums like hers that mostly rely on volunteers.
"In our situation, we're a living history museum that portrays the 1940s. We need to do fieldwork [and] document the lives of people who lived during the 1940s, and we've got about 10 years left to do it, before most ... of those voices will be gone."
'Heritage was put on the back-burner'
Despite years of discussion, city council has yet to come up with a larger cultural heritage plan. The interim grant means dollars will end up in museums now, Wilson-Hammond said.
"Heritage was put on the back-burner," Wilson Hammond said.
Councillor David Hendsbee said the hope of the interim grant is to provide security to HRM's museums while a bigger plan is hammered out.
"There's a lot of culture and history out there that needs to be protected somehow," he said.
For Wilson-Hammond, stable funding will allow museums to be creative and plan more programs that are rooted in the community, instead of fretting over how to keep the doors open.
"HRM is a very large municipality. And it is important to support the museums within [these smaller] communities because that's where they can make a difference," she said.
"We have 17 school tours in the next three weeks, and it's relevant to the school children in this area to see their own community reflected back at them," she said.
"A community museum is in the heart of each community, and that's different than travelling to downtown Halifax to connect with your heritage."
Wide range of Nova Scotia history
Some of the community museums that could stand to benefit are:
- Acadian House Museum
- Africville Heritage Trust
- Atlantic Canada Aviation Museum
- The Army Museum
- Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia
- Cole Harbour Heritage Farm Museum
- Fultz House Museum
- Hooked Rug Museum of North America
- MacPhee House Community Museum
- McMann House Museum/Genealogy Centre
- Memory Lane Heritage Village
- Moose River Gold Mines Museum
- Musquodoboit Harbour Railway Museum
- Scott Manor House
- Sport Hall of Fame
- SS Atlantic Heritage Park
- Urban Farm Museum
- Waverley Heritage Museum