Creation and Implementation of Family Programming for Richfield Historical Society
Statewide Historic and Cultural Grants. $5,250,000 the first year and $5,250,000 the second year are for history programs and projects operated or conducted by or through local, county, regional, or other historical or cultural organizations; or for activities to preserve significant historic and cultural resources.
Despite the completion of only one of the two proposed program initiatives, all short-term goals as stated in the grant application have been fully achieved. Observation of pilot programs at both the RHS museum campus, and Richfield Middle School showed that visitors were fully engaged in program activities, and that groups collaborated to problem-solve. Program participants were able to make decisions that moved individual program narratives forward in a logical/understandable way. While the public program proved more illustrative of the programs success in promoting cross-generational participation (given the varied age demographics among public users), both the public and Middle School based programs did engage a visitors representative of diverse communities.
Intermediate and long-term results have yet to be achieved, as the project is still largely in the pilot stages. This represents a setback when measured against the original proposal's stated work-plan benchmarks. However, these setbacks were related to several significant and unanticipated changes that deeply affected all operational aspects of the Richfield Historical Society - namely the departure of our Executive Director Jodi Larson, as well as the premature departure of T.J. Malaskee, the contractor hired to lead this program development initiative.
The initial success of the "Minnesota Territory: 1851" program as an education outreach initiative has poised RHS for success in achieving the long-range goals associated with this program initiative. Based on the success of in-school pilot programs in 2013, Richfield Middle School has already requested that RHS return in the fall of 2014 to offer the program again. This is a huge success for RHS, as the society has been struggling to develop school-aged programming that attracts local teachers and their students.