Grant from RI Foundation will bring Bristol history to life

The Bristol Historical and Preservation Society is among nine organizations that will receive grants through the Archive, Document, Display and Disseminate (ADDD) Fund at the Rhode Island Foundation.

“By providing the resources to bolster libraries and other civic, cultural and literacy-focused organizations, we can enlarge their position as community centers that encourage dialogue around important topics,” said philanthropist Herman Rose, who created the ADDD fund in 1986. Over the years, it has awarded nearly $400,000 in grants.

The Historical Society received $1,500 to continue cataloguing its early collections, including original documentation of the Africa-to-America slave trade. The work includes digitizing photos and documents to make the material accessible to residents on its website.

“Interest in the town continues to be strong and people want knowledge of both where they live and the town in general. Academic researchers are also interested and their work adds considerable value to our knowledge of the collections,” said Catherine Zipf, executive director.

“The ultimate goal is a database that appropriately catalogues the important artifacts in our collections to the standards of best practice, one that best benefits our community of users. We hold a collection that is nationally significant and we wish to cherish and present that to the widest audience possible,” she said.

The other recipients of this year’s ADDD grants include Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, which will convert its oral history project, “My Story, Our Community,” into a traveling exhibit that will be staged in every Rhode Island city and town; and Stages of Freedom, which will print 10,000 copies of “On the Rhode to Freedom: Black Historic Sites in Rhode Island,” a self-guided, statewide tour of upwards of 55 historic sites related to the state's African American history, people and events.

The primary goals of the fund are to increase public access to information through preserving and promoting print, digital or other material and to provide challenge grants for fundraising campaigns for the acquisition of equipment, special collections and publications among other material.

The Rhode Island Foundation is the largest and most comprehensive funder of nonprofit organizations in Rhode Island. In 2016, the Foundation awarded a record $45 million in grants to organizations addressing the state’s most pressing issues and needs of diverse communities. Through leadership, fundraising and grantmaking activities, often in partnership with individuals and organizations, the Foundation is helping Rhode Island reach its true potential. For more information, visit www.rifoundation.org.