[MassHistPres] Help Save SAT--Save America's Treasures-- Urgent request

Wed Jan 12 12:03:56 EST 2011

Dear Colleagues,

The Save America’s Treasures (SAT) program needs your help.  If you haven’t done so already, please take a moment to write to Secretary Salazar and urge to him to personally ensure that SAT is included in DOI’s 2012 budget.  They are making decisions now, so your note in the next 24 hours is important.  Feel free to use the attached talking points and see the example note at the bottom of this email.

Thank you!
Rebecca

Rebecca Williams| Program Officer, Northeast Office
National Trust for Historic Preservation | Seven Faneuil Hall Marketplace, 4th Floor, Boston, MA  02109
Phone: 617.523.0885| Fax: 617.5231199| Email: Rebecca_Williams at nthp.org<blocked::blocked::mailto:Rebecca_Williams at nthp.org> | www.PreservationNation.org<blocked::http://www.preservationnation.org/>

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Dear Colleagues:

You may be sick of hearing from us and tired of our pleas for help. Given the nature of this challenge, I can’t even promise that this is the last time we’ll reach out for a helping hand. All I can say is that  if we are successful in rescuing  Save America’s Treasures from the chopping block, it  will strengthen  all  our efforts to ensure a brighter future for our past.

As I think you know, SAT’s is a model  public-private  partnership that raises awareness, shines a critical spotlight, and provides irreplaceable funds to preserve our nation’s most significant sites and collections. This is both our government’s sacred responsibility and a sound investment that leverages private contributions many times over from individuals, foundations and corporations.  For more than a decade, SAT has proven to be both  a sparkplug and an anchor for community re-investment and revitalization - - in short, SAT gives the government  a huge bang for its buck.

Since Christmas, we have written to hundreds of  friends and fans of Save America’s Treasures all across the country,  asking them to  urge  Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to personally ensure that SAT is included in DOI’s 2012 budget. We’ve already received a big pile of letters in response,  many of them highly personal and heartfelt from grantees and prospective grantees, preservation partners, public officials, etc. But Stephanie and David want to make sure he hears the message loud and clear from as many places and stake-holders as possible.

Time is of the essence because the final budget is being completed as I write. Please take a few minutes in the next 24-hours to send a note yourself but,  even more important, please reach out and ask the SAT grantees and statewide and local partners in your region to weigh in on the value of the program and what will be lost if it is not funded. Please let us know if you don’t have the list of grantees in your region  - - or, of course if you have questions
or need more details.

Two specific points you may want to emphasize:

·         In recognition  of SAT’s role in stewarding our national heritage, in 2009, President Obama signed legislation permanently authorizing Save America’s Treasures.

·          SAT has provided more than $31 million in public and private contributions to critical restorations at National Park sites, including Ellis Island, Mesa Verde, Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Martin Luther King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, Eleanor Roosevelt’s Val Kill Cottage, Edison’s Invention Factory, and Longfellow’s Home.

Please write to: The Honorable Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Department of the Interior ,  kensalazar at ios.doi.gov<mailto:kensalazar at ios.doi.gov> and send a bcc to our office at Fiona_lawless at nthp.org<mailto:Fiona_lawless at nthp.org>.

FYI, I’ve attached below one of the first letters we received - -  it comes  from Leslie Greene Bowman, President of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello. In the spirit of “less is more”, it  explains exactly why she thinks this program matters and must be saved. Talking points are attached but please follow Leslie’s lead and make it personal .

Many thanks in advance for whatever you can do to support this effort.

All best for a blockbuster 2011,
Bobbie

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From: Leslie G. Bowman [mailto:lbowman at monticello.org]<mailto:[mailto:lbowman at monticello.org]>
Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2011 6:51 PM
To: kensalazar at ios.doi.gov<mailto:kensalazar at ios.doi.gov>
Cc: David Brown
Subject: Save America's Treasures

Dear Secretary Salazar,

When visiting Roman ruins in southern France, Thomas Jefferson decried the removal of an ancient amphitheater so as to repurpose the beautifully dressed Roman stone for road building.   He was shocked that such an act could occur in the “modern” era.    Jefferson understood the critical relevance of history and its monuments to present and future generations.    He revered cultural achievement, and sought to elevate appreciation for arts and culture in his own young nation.    He would not have been able to build Monticello, without the tutelage of ancient architecture he received in France.

Save America’s Treasures is a critically important federal program that offers vital assistance in preserving our nation’s built cultural heritage.    And when we invest in our nation’s historic fabric, we invest in community building, because each of these sites helps define a community.   These projects save cultural treasures, revitalize community identities, provide jobs, and leverage matching funds and investments.   Since its founding, Save America’s Treasures has invested $294 million in more than 1100 projects, and produced matching investments of more than $377 million from the private sector.

I urge you to retain funding for Save America’s Treasures at a minimum of $25 million in  fiscal year 2012.   Never has this funding been more important than now, when cultural and historic sites are bowing under the stress of sustained headwind economies.      Once lost, these treasures are not retrievable for our children and theirs.  Any more than the amphitheater was in Jefferson’s time.

Respectfully yours,

LESLIE GREENE BOWMAN
President
Thomas Jefferson Foundation
Monticello
P.O. Box 316
Charlottesville, VA  22902
(434) 984-9801
www.monticello.org<http://www.monticello.org>

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