Category: Preservation

One Month Away: Join Us at Our Preservation Celebration 2024

We are one month away from our Preservation Celebration 2024 at the newly refurbished Hollins Market and we hope you’ll join us! On October 10, we’ll honor our 2024 Preservation Award winners and, with your help, give out five microgrants to people working on the front lines in our historic neighborhoods. We’ll say thank you to our volunteers and honor all of their hard work this year. This gathering also acts as Baltimore Heritage’s annual meeting where we elect new board members. With food and drink from Baltimore vendors, we hope you will join us for what promises to be a wonderful evening. We hope you’ll join us on October 10!

Register here! Tickets are free with a suggested donation of $25.

–Johns Hopkins, Executive Director

Our Newest Centennial Home: The Parago-Culbreath Family

On July 30, 2024, Baltimore Heritage, in partnership with the Bolton Hill Community Association (BHA), awarded the Parago-Culbreath family with a Centennial Homes certificate. The Parago-Culbreath family has lived in their home on Dolphin St. for over 116 years. This is the longest occupancy by a family in Bolton Hill, and for a few generations they held strong here through segregationist housing policies. We are grateful to this family’s endurance, strength and continued stewardship of the property.

The Baltimore Centennial Homes project, developed in collaboration between Baltimore Heritage and City Councilman James Kraft, recognizes families that have been in the same house for 100 years or more. These families have anchored Baltimore’s historic blocks and neighborhoods through good times and bad. Their stories show the changes that our communities and our city have experienced as well as the critical roles that neighborhoods and their families have played in keeping historic neighborhoods thriving.

Members of the Parago-Culbreath family with the Centennial Home certificate.

2024 Preservation Celebration: Save the Date – October 10 & Send Us Ideas for Awardees and Micro Grants

We are thrilled that this year’s Baltimore Heritage Preservation Celebration will be at the newly restored historic Hollins Market. Please join us on October 10. It’s free and we’d love to have you with us.

On October 10, we’ll honor our 2024 Preservation Award winners and, with your help, give out five micro-grants to people working on the front lines in our historic neighborhoods. We’ll say thank you to our volunteers and honor all of their hard work this year. This gathering also acts as Baltimore Heritage’s annual meeting where we elect new board members. With food and drinks from Baltimore vendors, we hope you will join us for what promises to be a wonderful evening. The event is free with suggested voluntary donation of $25.

In addition to joining us on October 10, please take a minute to send us your suggestions for our annual preservation awards. And if you are helping improve a historic neighborhood or place in the city, please consider applying for one of our microgrants. See below for more information.

 

 

About Our 2024 Historic Preservation Awards

At our October 10 celebration, we will honor people in Baltimore who over the last year have made an impact in helping save our historic places and improve our historic neighborhoods.

Our awards recognize work of all kinds: people who have done an excellent rehab job on their house or building; people who have volunteered at a historic site; people who have stepped up to improve their historic community with a new program or partnership. Individuals are eligible, as are organizations, corporations, and government agencies or programs. Self nominations are encouraged! Please send nominations to info@baltimoreheritage.org by September 4.

 

About Our 2024 Microgrants

We’re in our 9th year of giving away micro-grants to help fund preservation work in the city. If you have a good idea to help preserve a historic building or place in Baltimore or help revitalize a historic neighborhood, we’d love to hear from you! The process is easy: simply fill out the online application and hit send by September 13.

We’ll pick the most promising ideas and give them a chance for one $2000 grant, two $1000 grants and two $500 grants. The grants will be given on October 10 at our Preservation Celebration at Hollins Market (35 S Carrollton Ave, Baltimore, MD 21223). Supporters of each idea will get three minutes to pitch them and at the end, all of us present will cast ballots to decide which ideas receive the micro grants.

The types of eligible projects are endless, and as long as they relate to Baltimore’s history, heritage, historic buildings or historic neighborhoods we will consider them. Past award winners include: restoring leaking masonry at a historic church, launching an after school arts-based safe space program in a historic neighborhood, supporting archaeological efforts at a historic furnace, and providing supplies for a community trying to provide access to a neighboring park. The sky’s the limit!

The amounts of the award ($500, $1000, and $2000) may not be enough to complete an entire project. That’s OK. The goal is to help spark new and support existing neighborhood-level preservation work. You don’t need to be a nonprofit organization or even a formalized group to be eligible. Individuals and small groups are welcome! Complete rules can be found on the application.

Please Take Our Very Short Hands-On Preservation Survey

We at Baltimore Heritage are committed to expanding our assistance in revitalizing historic neighborhoods in Baltimore, and are exploring the idea of coordinating hands-on volunteer work to help with community projects. To help us understand how we can best use our time and resources, please take 45 seconds and fill out this 4 question survey.

 

Click here to take the survey

 

If you choose to enter your email, you will be entered into a drawing for two free Baltimore Heritage tour tickets. Thank you for your participation!

What Are We Planning for 2024?

And why we need your support to make it happen!

There are only a few days left in 2023, which means you have only a few days left to donate or become a member this year! We are a small organization so a gift of any size – from $5 to $500 – will help immensely. Here are a few highlights for how your gift will help in the year ahead:

  • Heritage Tours: This past year we began hosting tours at Westminster Hall & Burying Ground in addition to our recurring tours at Clifton Mansion, Green Mount Cemetery and in historic neighborhoods around our city. This spring we will be able to return with more robust tours and events, including three new bus tours. Please stay tuned!
  • Five Minute Histories Videos: Our Five Minute Histories series offers a way to connect that in-person programs just can’t. So, don’t worry, these are here to stay, and we’re ramping up for a full year of them in 2024.
  • Critical Preservation Advocacy: This past year we helped fight to preserve architecturally significant rowhouses on Preston Street in Mt. Vernon and several buildings in the Five & Dime Local Historic District near Lexington Market. In 2024, we will continue this work throughout the city, which a special focus on disinvested historic neighborhoods.

 

We need your help today.

 

We at Baltimore Heritage are a little bit unusual. We rely heavily on kind volunteers to make our work possible, and nearly three quarters of our annual operating income comes from gifts from individuals. Most of these gifts are at our basic membership levels of $35 for an individual and $50 for a family. By donating at any level, be assured that your support goes a long way.

So once more for 2023, please accept an enormous thank you to everyone who volunteers with us, comes out for tours and programs (in-person and virtually!), and supports our work by generously donating. We look forward to working with you and connecting with you in the year ahead.

— Johns Hopkins, Baltimore Heritage