Mennonite Historians Of Eastern Pennsylvania Inc

Programs: Exhibits at the mennonite heritage center depict the mennonite faith and culture from over three hundred years of living in southeastern pennsylvania communities. Exhibits in 2014 included: "perkiomen valley art center membership exhibition", "penn view christian middle school intergenerational art show", "the december art exhibition & sale", "hallman legacy exhibit", "play nicely:vintage toys and games" and "common threads: textiles from the mennonite heritage center, goschenhoppen historians and schwenkfelder library & heritage center". Long term exhibits are the history exhibit "work and hope" and the fraktur gallery.

the mennonite heritage center houses museum, library and archival collections. The museum collection consists of textiles, ceramics, earthenware, fraktur, furniture, glassware, household, utensils, musical instruments, paintings, photographs and tools. The library collection consists of books and periodicals about mennonite culture, history and theology pertaining to local church and community history, as well as pennsylvania german materials, family bibles, hymnals, maps, broadsides, charts, prints, songbooks and audio and visual recordings. The archival collection consists of materials such as congregation and conference records and personal, family or business papers such as account books, diaries, letters and other manuscripts. The collections are available to the public through exhibits and to individual researchers.

the mennonite heritage center conducts a wide range of programs to carry out the mission to preserve and share over 300 years of mennonite life in eastern pennsylvania. Events in 2014 included the croquet tournament in june, our fall apple butter frolic, and the december folk art sale. Program topics were "mennonite women in pennsylvania", "learning from the least: reflections on a journey in mission with palestinian christians" and "forty years on the anabaptist mennonite trail: a visual pilgrimage". Bus tours were "old roads to lehigh valley" and a local "historic churches tour". Fifteen traditional arts worshops on topics such as theorem painting, sgraffito pottery, and calligraphy along with a traditional hymn sing and an historical essay contest for high school students filled out the 2014 programs.

during 2013, the organization started constructing a barn to be used as storage and space for future programs. Costs for 2014 amounted to 75,079. The costs of the building was transferred to its affilitate, mhep properties, which is a property holding entity.