Save America’s Treasures grant program’s deadline for grant applications for this year is coming up in a few weeks, May 22, 2009. For those of you not familiar with SAT (as those in the biz call it, not to be confused with that nasty little test you have to take to get into college), it began under President Clinton in 1999. Here’s the blurb from the SAT website:
The Federal Save America’s Treasures program is one of the largest and most successful grant programs for the protection of our nation’s endangered and irreplaceable and endangered cultural heritage. Grants are available for preservation and/or conservation work on nationally significant intellectual and cultural artifacts and historic structures and sites. Intellectual and cultural artifacts include artifacts, collections, documents, sculpture, and works of art. Historic structures and sites include historic districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects.
The grant is open to all units of government–federal, state, local–and non-profit organizations (including active religious organizations) and requires a one-to-one match (i.e, SAT puts in $100,000 and you put in $100,000, making a total of–say it all together–$200,000). You can find all the arcane details here. If you can’t put together an application this year, think ahead toward getting your numbers ready for next year–this is a very competitive program obviously, so you want to put your best foot forward when you send in your application.
The program has always been geared toward buildings and artifacts that had national significance (like the Constitution or the Liberty Bell or the Old Capitol), but lately, I think the definition of “national significance” has become a little more broad, so that places like our county courthouses (which are lovely of course, but possibly, just possibly–no hate mail please–aren’t nationally significant) have received grants. I’m not complaining, just pointing out something.
The SAT website has an easy-to-use search tool that shows us what Mississippi projects have been funded over the years–here are the results for your Monday morning edification:
| Old Mississippi State Capitol | Jackson | Mississippi | $525,000.00 | 2007 |
| Ocean Springs Community Center | Ocean Springs | Mississippi | $98,529.00 | 2006 |
| Copiah County Courthouse | Hazlehurst | Mississippi | $221,690.00 | 2006 |
| Hinds County Courthouse | Raymond | Mississippi | $221,690.00 | 2006 |
| Monroe County Courthouse | Aberdeen | Mississippi | $147,793.00 | 2006 |
| WLBT News Film Collection, Mississippi Department of Archives and History | Jackson | Mississippi | $227,000.00 | 2005 |
| Lafayette County Courthouse | Oxford | Mississippi | $197,221.00 | 2005 |
| Clarke County Courthouse | Quitman | Mississippi | $197,221.00 | 2005 |
| Burns Church / Belfry House | Oxford | Mississippi | $148,152.00 | 2004 |
| Marks-Rothenberg Building | Meridian | Mississippi | $197,535.00 | 2004 |
| Pontotoc Courthouse | Pontotoc | Mississippi | $296,303.00 | 2004 |
| Beauvoir, Biloxi | Biloxi | Mississippi | $300,000.00 | 2004 |
| Stone County Courthouse | Wiggins | Mississippi | $248,000.00 | 2003 |
| L.Q.C. Lamar House | Oxford | Mississippi | $390,000.00 | 2003 |
| Eudora Welty House | Jackson | Mississippi | $251,000.00 | 2003 |
| George Ohr Museum and Cultural Center | Biloxi | Mississippi | $425,000.00 | 2002 |
| Mary OKeefe Cultural Center | Ocean Springs | Mississippi | $299,000.00 | 2001 |
| Rowan Oak | Oxford | Mississippi | $299,000.00 | 2001 |
| Grand Opera House of Mississippi | Meridian | Mississippi | $400,000.00 | 2000 |
Categories: Aberdeen, Biloxi, Grants, Hazlehurst, Historic Preservation, Jackson, Meridian, Ocean Springs, Oxford, Pontotoc, Quitman, Raymond, Renovation Projects, Wiggins
Preservation in Mississippi 
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