Old Salem seeks to raise $17.66 million
Old Salem Museums & Gardens has lunched a capital campaign.
The public phase of the fundraising campaign, themed “On Common Ground,” was announced last week. The campaign goal is $17.66 million. (Salem was founded in 1766.) Approximately $11.2 million already has been raised.
“The ‘On Common Ground’ name arose from our firm belief that the past serves to inform the present and the future,” Old Salem Museums & Gardens President and CEO Ragan Folan said. “Our founders were visionary pioneers, and now the Old Salem Board of Trustees and all the campaign supporters are acting as visionary pioneers of Old Salem for decades to come.”
Capital raised from the campaign will fund a wide variety of crucial projects at Old Salem, including endowed positions and endowed historic preservation funds as well as the restoration of the Boys’ School and Dr. Samuel Benjamin Vierling House. The campaign also will fund improvements to MESDA and the Frank L. Horton Museum Center. The overarching mission of On Common Ground, officials say, is to enhance the visitor experience at Old Salem and support the future sustainability of Old Salem.
“MESDA will undergo needed renovations in addition to the creation of a new Anne P. and Thomas A. Gray Library and MESDA Research Center,” Folan said. “Galleries are being updated and renovated; a new state-of-the-art auditorium is planned as well as the addition of more classrooms and meeting spaces for MESDA’s growing number of highly successful lectures and seminars.”
