[MassHistPres] Quonset Hut / Funding

[Burks, Sarah]

Matt,

Do you have a non-profit funding agent through whom you can accept tax deductible contributions for preserving/moving the hut? The publicity that you do should make it easy for people to see where to donate.

Sarah

From: masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu [mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu] On Behalf Of cvwtc at aol.com
Sent: Sunday, January 24, 2010 3:00 PM
To: masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
Subject: [MassHistPres] Quonset Hut / Funding

As you may have read on my previous entry, we are trying to preserve a very rare civilian Quonset hut with an almost untouched interior from its days in a post-war veteran village.  The non-profit Seabees Museum in Davisville, RI said they would add the building to their collection.  A house moving company we contacted said they would do the job.  The real issue is funding.

We are Beverly historians working on behalf of a Rhode Island museum to send a Beverly Quonset hut that's in Hamilton to Davisville.  This has really limited just what we can do to save the building.  Preservation grant programs in Massachusetts are off limits to us since the hut would be sent to Rhode Island.  Rhode Island preservation grants are also off limits since the hut is in Massachusetts.  We've been given so little time to save this structure and many grant programs out there take months to even decide if a cause like this is worth funding.

What do we do?  I really appreciate all the well-wishers and Quonset hut fans out there but the bottom line is:  Funding saves the building.  Advocacy helps to save it but anything else seems to lead to a dead end.  This preservation dilemma was posted to Preserve RI's e-newsletter a few weeks ago and we haven't received one hit or phone call.

Also, someone suggested the developer should be convinced to donate the hut as a tax-deductible gift and then he could use the money to fund the move (which would also be tax-deductible).  However, no one, including the Seabee Museum, can figure out just how much this structure would be worth or how much of a tax deduction he would get.  Any ideas?

- Matt Pujo
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