HISTORY is proud to announce the winners of Save Our History National Grants for the 2008-2009 grant cycle. This year, HISTORY awarded grants of up to $10,000 to 11 history organizations across the country. We congratulate the winners for their dedication to local preservation efforts, and look forward to hearing about the progress of their Save Our History projects!

1. Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society
Charlottesville, VA
Partner: Charlottesville High School, Charlottesville City Schools
Description: The Tale of Two Schools: Promoting Community Unity through a Historical Study of School Integration

The Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society will partner with Charlottesville High School government teachers to educate and encourage students to conduct historical research using primary source documents from Charlottesville City Schools history. Students will document and preserve the voices of individuals who lived during the turbulent years of desegregation in Charlottesville by collecting oral histories. The final product, hosted by the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, will be a museum exhibit consisting of oral histories combined with copies of School Board primary source documents, and an online exhibit featuring photos, oral histories and related historical documents.

2. Citrus County Historical Society Inc.
Inverness, FL
Partner: Citrus County Schools and Citrus High School
Description: Save Our Vanishing Rural Landscape

The Citrus County Historical Society will partner with Citrus County Schools and Citrus High School to inform students and the community of disappearing rural areas of Florida and the importance of their safeguarding, specifically the Davis property which was the site of the first Citrus County Fairgrounds and one of the first Lecanto School buildings. Students will work with a web design company to develop a website that will include student research, video documentation, virtual field trips, oral histories and podcasts. Students will also create a traveling trunk that will bring lesson plans, activities, photographs, timelines and videos to the classroom.

3. Cotton Museum Inc
Memphis, TN
Partner: Memphis University School, Hutchison School
Description: From Squidge to Snake: The Legends of Cotton Row

The Cotton Museum in Memphis will partner with Memphis University School and Hutchinson School to create an audio walking tour that would take visitors through a downtown Memphis neighborhood on Front Street, commonly referred to as Cotton Row. Voices on the audio walking tour will be from the perspective of former inhabitants of the community, and will help residents and visitors discover this hidden society and the effect of the Cotton Industry on downtown Memphis.

4. Del Norte County Historical Society
Crescent City, CA
Partner: Crescent Elk Middle School
Description: Preserving Tolowa and Yurok Basketry: Weaving Culture, Technology, and Museography into Community Service

Museum staff will collaborate with the Yurok and Tolowa tribes, 30 Title VII American Indian Education students, and 15 honor students from Crescent Elk Middle School to create a catalog of the museum's collection of Native American basketry. The catalog will be available to students, teachers, and community members, and the webpage will be posted to the museum's website. The stories of these baskets will also be preserved through a DVD of the collection, which will be distributed to teachers and the Cultural and NAGPRA committees of local tribes, and installed on an interactive kiosk within the museum's Native American exhibit.

5. Fairfield Foundation
White Marsh, VA
Partner: Botetourt Elementary School
Description: Building on our Past: Teaching Historic Preservation through Plantation Landscapes in Gloucester County, Virginia

The Fairfield Foundation will engage 4th graders at Botetourt Elementary School in the study of historic plantation landscapes in the community, to understand the links between the past and present and current threats facing these resources. Students will visit four of the country's most notable plantation sites, document the sites through video footage and photos, and conduct interviews. Students together with the Foundation and a video consultant will compile the video footage and photos which will be posted on the Foundation website and other video-sharing internet sites.

6. Fredericktown Area Historical Society
Fredericktown, OH
Partner: Fredericktown School District, Fredericktown Elementary School
Description: The Changing Face of Family Farms: Documenting Farming Past and Present in Knox County, Ohio

The Fredericktown Area Historical Society, The Ohio State University Extension Service, and Fredericktown High School students will collaborate to compile research and interview materials to create a documentary of the community's farming history. Using resources from the Historical Library and the Knox County Agricultural Museum, Students will digitize and organize facts pertaining to farming in Fredericktown, and collect oral histories from the oldest farmers in the area. The final product, a documentary DVD of the communitys farming history, will incorporate the research, videotaping and photographs all collected by the students.

7. Longue Vue House & Gardens
New Orleans, LA
Partner: Mary D Coghill Elementary, New Orleans Kid Camera Project
Description: Pontchatrain Park Photography Project

Longue Vue House and Gardens will partner with Mary D. Coghill Elementary and the New Orleans Kid Camera Project (NOKCP) in an effort to preserve and protect the legacy of a neighborhood where much of its physical history was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Students will canvas Pontchartrain Park with the New Orleans Kids Camera Project to photograph the rebuilding process, and will partner with Tulane Service to collect photographs and written oral histories from neighborhood residents. Students will develop, install and display an exhibit at Longue Vue in the spring of 2009. The traveling exhibit will be displayed at the Pontilly Disaster Collaborative and at St. Gabriel's Catholic Church, both in Pontchartrain Park.

8. Montana Heritage Preservation & Development Commission
Virginia City, MT
Partner: Ennis High School, Stevens High School
Description: New Hampshire in Montana

The Montana Heritage Preservation & Development Commission, in partnership with Ennis High School in New Hampshire and Stevens High School in Montana, will explore the history of settlers in Montana who hailed from New Hampshire during the gold rush of the 1860s. New Hampshire students will research and document their community as it was in the 1860s and will share their findings with their Montana counterparts. This will link students from across the country and create a historically accurate picture of the epic journeys these Americans encountered on both ends of the trip.

9. Neville Public Museum
Green Bay, WI
Partner: Green Bay Preble High School, University of Wisconsin – Green Bay
Description: Remembering Brown Countys Forgotten WWI Soldiers

The Neville Public Museum, Preble High School and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay will digitize and make accessible an archival collection of 1,721 records relating to local soldiers from World War I. This project will create an accessible digital archive, lesson plans for educators, and a museum exhibit featuring the collection. The project will rescue a rare archival collection and make it publicly available to students, teachers, and the greater Green Bay community reconnect with the lives and stories of these World War I veterans.

10. The Redlands Conservancy
Redlands, CA
Partner: Redlands High School, Mariposa Elementary
Description: The Zanja Connection

The Redlands Conservancy will partner with Redlands High School and 4th grade students at Mariposa Elementary to preserve and explore the significance of the Zanja connection – a 189 year-old ditch dug by local American Indians to bring water for irrigation, half of which is still being used today. The Conservancy will work with students to create and install 30 historic site markers along the Zanja, marking historic events and locations. Students will also create a map and brochure which will be available to museums, libraries, visitors centers and chambers of commerce to increase efforts to preserve the Zanja for the future of the region.

11. Vernon Township Historical Society
Vernon, NJ
Partner: Glen Meadow Middle School
Description: Bringing the Past to the Present: Teaching Lenni Lenape History and Culture through the Black Creek Site

Assisted by professional archaeologists, students from Glen Meadow Middle School in partnership with the Vernon Township Historical Society will participate in an archaeological dig of the Black Creek Site, home to thousands of artifacts dating back 10,000 years (from 8500 BC to 1700 AD) through 500 generations of human history during the Great North American Stone Age. Maps, trail markers, signage and an outdoor classroom area will enable teachers to bring students onsite to learn the rich prehistory and history of the Black Creek Site.