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Grant
makes good
on Champoeg
Promise and more |
Local history programs will put the money to good use
helping preserve local history |
By Gunnar Olson, Newberg
Graphic reporter
E-mail Gunnar at golson@eaglenewspapers.com
|
They’ll talk like their ancestors, barter like their ancestors and
maybe come to appreciate all of the hardships their ancestors endured.
Come springtime the rich history of Champoeg will be more accessible to area
students in grades first through eighth, thanks to a new interpretive history program and
a $5,000 grant.
And this is only one of the grants emanating from the recently-established
Helen E. Austin Pioneer Fund, set up by her grandchildren, Loni Parrish and Ken Austin
III. Grants will be given each year hereafter to programs dealing with local history.
There were three total grants given out from the fund this year. The new
interpretive history program, the Champoeg Promise, was given $5,000. The St. Paul Mission
Historical Society received $10,000. The Yamhill County Historical Society was granted
$2,000.
The St. Paul Mission will use the money to start organizing a mass of
historical artifacts that it has accumulated. It amounts to “boxes and boxes” of
stuff, said Laura Winter, director of Advised Funds at the Oregon Community Foundation,
who introduced the donors to the organizations. There’s old newspaper clippings,
paintings, birth records and photos.
The Yamhill County Historical Society is going to make 50 history kits with
its grant. The kits, basically briefcases full of all the examples and illustrations
needed to give a lecture on a specific pieces of history, will be available to bring to
classrooms.
Friends of Historic Champoeg will use the funds to implement its new
interactive history program. The Champoeg Promise, as it’s called, was developed for
Friends this past spring with the help of another grant — $11,000 from the Meyer
Memorial Trust. Now, with the grant money from the Pioneer Fund, Friends will be able to
connect schools and teachers with the new program.
Specifically, Friends will use the money to pay for a part-time coordinator —
Colleen Sump. It will be her duty to spread word about the program.
Sump was audibly excited when talking about her new role, and said she is in
the process of getting fliers printed to be sent out to local schools in a couple weeks.
Kids were the motivation for the Champoeg Promise. Students will be immersed
in the history of Oregon when it was a territory independent of the United States.
The learning begins before the students even step foot on the field-trip bus.
Participating classes will be sent activities to complete beforehand, as well as after.
For example, students will learn bits and pieces of Chinook Jargon, the
piecemeal language that settlers and Native Americans used for trading. The students may
also pretend to barter as the settlers and Native Americans did, perhaps trading Crayons
for paper to color.
Sump said that all of the activities — before, during and after —
will help pupils better retain what they learned.
“You get this whole comprehensive experience that’s a lot more than
a field trip,” Sump said.
The Champoeg Promise will run March 29 through June 11, 2004, at the Donald
Manson Farmstead and Visitor Center. Each class lasts about two and a half hours. Cost is
$3.50 per student. Call 503-678-1649 to schedule a field trip of for more information. |
|
From Oct. 1,
2003, Newberg Graphic
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