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- EIN 04-2147607
- 10 Memorial St Deerfield MA 01342-5004 USA
- www.deerfield-ma.org
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Nonprofit Overview
Causes: Art Museums, Arts & Culture, Education, History Museums
Mission: The Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association/Memorial Hall Museum is a membership-based organization in Deerfield, Massachusetts, offering a wide variety of programs to support its mission of preserving the history of Deerfield and Connecticut River Valley. It maintains a museum, children''s museum, library, and teachers? center in Deerfield. . The Museum collects, preserves, and exhibits cultural artifacts made and/or used in the region. These collections are maintained both for the education of the general public and as research tools for scholars.The organization is known for its publications, education programs in the schools and its new educational website: www.americancenturies.mass.edu. To carry out its mission, PVMA has the following specific goals:-To collect materials from the region''s diverse communities.-To preserve artifacts and information for future generations.-To publish and disseminate research on the collections.-To produce permanent and rotating interpretive exhibits designed to be approachable and interesting to its diverse audience.-To provide both the community and scholars access to the collections on a regular schedule.-To host public programs of an educational nature, with a special emphasis on elementary and secondary school programs.-To promote an interest in the history and art of this region.-To widely communicate information on the collections through the electronic and printed media.-To engage the participation of the membership of the PVMA and the community in the above programs.
Programs: Great strides have been made over the past 25 years in broadening the Museum's vision and community participation. Founded in the heat of the Colonial Revival to honor English ancestors who settled this region in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Museum has enlarged its programming to include Eastern Europeans, Native Americans, African Americans, and other people of color. The Museum is a vital and active member of the community, acting as a repository for its on-going history, and frequently called upon to provide an historical, multi-cultural perspective as the community grapples with current-day concerns. The Museum began offering education programs in 1975 and serves students PreK-12 in area school districts and colleges. We offer institutes to educators, participate in teacher training courses, and collaborate with area school systems to develop standards-based curriculum. The Museum has just launched an educational website for a national audience, funded in part by the NEH and IMLS, which features primary resources for use in the classroom and school libraries, as well as curriculum and exhibits. Most recently we have been awarded a Teaching American History grant (in partnership with County school districts) to provide extensive teacher professional development throughout the County. The Museum offers professional education for museum personnel. An adult lecture series, Eastern European project, living history events, historical theater, lifelong learning programs and concerts have been developed. To better meet the needs of families, we opened the 'Old Deerfield Children's Museum', our family activity center, in the summer of 1999.The Museum is using a wide range of electronic and printed media, radio, TV, newspapers, books and the Internet to promote an interest in the history of the region and our collections. In addition to its own award-winning publications, the Museum assists scholars, authors, and publishers with research and photographs, reaching a vast national audience through books and publications. Publications range from William and Mary Quarterly to Yankee Magazine. The award-winning book by John Demos, The Unredeemed Captive, was researched, in great part, in the library's manuscript collection. PVMA annually serves 48,000 constituents onsite, largely from Franklin and Hampshire Counties. Off-site audiences, such as at quilt shows, and in-school programs, are an additional 25,044.