WEST CHICAGO CITY MUSEUM RECEIVES SAVE OUR HISTORY GRANT FROM THE HISTORY CHANNEL®

West Chicago, Illinois: August 31, 2007 - The History Channel has awarded the West Chicago City Museum in West Chicago a $10,000 Save Our History grant to partner with the West Chicago Community High School District 94 for “Building a Community: Creating a Dialogue about Mexican Contributions to West Chicago,” a collaborative project exploring the lives of Mexican immigrants in West Chicago. The West Chicago City Museum is one of 27 history organizations nationwide that received Save Our History community preservation grants.  These grants fund innovative preservation projects designed to bring communities together, actively engage children in the preservation of their local history and communicate the importance of saving local history for future generations.

The History Channel, with the counsel of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) and American Association of State and Local History (AASLH), created the Save Our History Grant Program as an extension of the Save Our History philanthropic initiative and is committed to inspiring and motivating local communities to learn about and take an active role in the preservation of their past through projects involving artifacts, oral histories, sites, museums or landmarks that exist in their own neighborhoods.  In four years, 1,934 historic organizations, representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia have applied for funding through the Save Our History Grant Program. To date, The History Channel and its cable partners have given $1 million dollars to fund community preservation projects across the country. 

The West Chicago City Museum will guide students from West Chicago Community High School District 94 in a research project designed to explore and document the life of Mexican immigrants in West Chicago. Brought to West Chicago to work as laborers, companies housed Mexican laborers in a segregated area, and much of their history remains unknown to the larger population. Students will collect oral histories from Mexican and Mexican American community members, culminating in an interactive website where community members can continue to post their stories, as well as an exhibit displaying the history of Mexicans in West Chicago and their contribution to the culture of the city.

###