Kudos for December 2010
Great job Affiliates for ending the year on a high note! and congratulations to all Affiliates for their accomplishments this year. Bravo!
Big congratulations to Conner Prairie (Fishers, Indiana) and Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, California) for being two of 10 museums and libraries to receive the 2010 National Medal for Museum and Library Service from The Institute of Museum and Library Service. The National Medal is the nation’s highest honor for museums and libraries that make extraordinary civic, educational, economic, environmental, and social contributions. In addition to the National Medal, each institution receives a $10,000 award.
As part of the Illinois Public Museums Capital Grants Program, the Adler Planetarium(Chicago) will receive a $750,000 grant towards new and expanded facilities, exhibits and infrastructure improvements.
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has awarded a new $3 million grant to the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art (Biloxi, Mississippi) to complete the structure for the gallery that displays the work of the celebrated Mississippi potter, George Ohr. The new addition will be named the John S. and James L. Knight Gallery.
The Heard Museum (Phoenix, Arizona) recently won two grants to help support free school admission for students to tour the museum during field trips. The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, awarded the museum $75,000 to support school tours, while the Orange County, California, Community Foundation’s S.L. Gimbel Foundation Fund gave a $7,500 grant to support student programming.
PPL Montana Community Fund awarded the Museum of the Rockies (Bozeman, Montana) a $2,500 grant to allow eligible Head Start families a free annual museum membership, part of a team effort between the museum and Head Start to provide financially disadvantaged children the opportunity to visit a museum.
The New York State Museum (Albany, New York) has received a $1 million federal grant to conduct a new research project aimed at protecting endangered species of native freshwater mussels from the lethal fouling impacts of invasive zebra mussels. The grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, through its Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, will allow museum scientists to use their environmentally safe invention to continue their research with a new emphasis on open-water applications.
Museum of Design Atlanta (Atlanta, Georgia) received a $50,000 grant from the Charles Loridans Foundation to help support its move from downtown to Midtown, where it will open across Peachtree Street from the High Museum of Art in February.
Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Cody, Wyoming) was awarded a $200,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities to begin preparation of a thematic, illustrated digital edition of the papers of Buffalo Bill Cody, a symbol of the American West in the popular imagination. BBHC was also granted $10,250 from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund to develop the exhibition “Arapaho Journey: Photographs and Stories from the Wind River Reservation.” 
