NEH Awards $750,000 to Shaker Herb House Cultural Center
The fully rehabilitated building will headquarter the 200-year-old Shaker herb business and serve as Shaker Village’s first large-scale year-round educational and cultural space with more than 8,000 square-feet of production rooms and traditional arts studio-classrooms. Free self-guided public access to daily operations, free folk traditions demonstrations, expanded volunteer opportunities, new community alliances, and a wide variety of master classes will deliver experiential learning deeply rooted in herbalism and agriculture, culinary arts, and traditional crafts. The Herb House Cultural & Traditional Arts Center will target local audiences in ways never before possible and will align unique cultural learning experiences with the school calendar and nearly 100,000 students within 60 miles of Shaker Village.
The $750,000 Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grant requires a 4:1 match and marks the start of a $4.3 million capital campaign at Shaker Village to expand public cultural programming.
National Endowment for the Humanities announced the 245 national recipients on April 13, 2022. The Shaker Herb House Cultural & Traditional Arts Center was 1 of 8 projects nationally that received the maximum grant award. The 3-year rehabilitation project and public fundraiser will take place between 2022 and 2024 when the Herb House celebrates its bicentennial.
Read more at maineshakers.com/capital-campaign/
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The Shakers
The Sabbathday Lake Shakers in New Gloucester, Maine are the faithful heirs, stewards, and examples of 247-years of values, philosophies, practices, and traditions. Still accepting new members and leading a good-will mission of public outreach, the Sabbathday Lake Shakers have opened their home and culture to seekers of all kinds through beneficial personal, academic, and spiritual experiences.
Best SHaker Village Tour In America
“This is a must-see. We’ve been to other Shaker Villages in America. This one is the best because the people who lead these tours know the last Shakers. So, the talk had a personal depth that is absent from the other Shaker sites, that are run by museum companies.”
RonaSomerville, TripAdvisor Review
