If you are looking for outings to finish out the summer, you can find tourist attractions all over Prince George’s County, from Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center right here in Hyattsville, all the way down to Piskataway Park across the Potomac from Mount Vernon.
Area kids who visit these locations during the school year may benefit from recent grants from the state of Maryland.
Anacostia Trails Heritage Area, one of thirteen Maryland heritage sites, announced in July that it was expanding to become the first heritage site to encompass an entire county.
According to ATHA’s Associate Director Valerie Woodhall, the expanded heritage area will benefit sites in southern Prince George’s County. “Historic houses, museums, parks, trails, nature centers that could be upgraded, can now apply for these grants and resources, and we can work with them in a more full way than we could before.”
Since 1999, over $2 million of Maryland Heritage Authority grants have been awarded in the Anacostia Trails Heritage Area (ATHA).
When ATHA announced their county-wide expansion in July, they also announced that five sites in the county had received a total of $270,000 from the Maryland Heritage Authority.
Pyramid Atlantic, one of the grant recipients, shares the historic arcade building at 4318 Gallatin Street with the offices of ATHA.
“They’ve been our partner slash co-tenant since we moved here in 2016,” Executive Director Kate Taylor Davis said. “And I think that their goals of increasing tourism are really well aligned with what we’re trying to do in terms of being an arts anchor for this area.”
Davis said that the art center – which puts on exhibitions, teaches art classes, and rents out private art studios for local artists – will use its $45,000 grant to expand their gallery and teaching spaces.
According to Davis the money from the grant will renovate 2,000 feet of space vacated by an office tenant.
“We have been growing since we moved to Hyattsville, and needing space for that growth to happen,” Davis said. “Schools kind of want to come to us by the busload. There’s no way currently that we can really make that happen… but with the larger contiguous space, we can welcome a full group of students and then use different breakouts.” Davis said that the renovations will include movable walls.
ATHA’s southern expansion
At its founding in 2001, ATHA covered 100 square miles in mostly northern Prince George’s County. The area was expanded in 2017, and again in July of this year to cover the whole county.
Two newly-qualified sites in southern Prince George’s County received their first state grant funds through ATHA: The Accokeek Foundation, and the Alice Ferguson Foundation, which received $100,000 and $60,000 respectively. Both run programs in Piscataway National Park on the Potomac River.
The Accoceek Foundation was established in 1957 in what later became Piscataway Park to protect the land from development. The foundation now stewards 200 acres of parkland including the National Colonial Farm, an exhibit of an 18th century farm on the eve of the American Revolution.
The Accokeek Foundation focuses on remembering and protecting the homeland of the Piscataway People, and also hosts school children on educational field trips.
The foundation’s executive director Anjela Barnes said that ATHA designation “is really significant in being able to bring more funding resources, to preserving the unique cultural heritage of Southern Maryland.”
According to Barnes, Accokeek plans to use their funds from the grant to repair the National Colonial Farm’s outkitchen and open it up to the public next year.
The Alice Ferguson Foundation, located on 330 acres in Piscataway Park also received grant money. The foundation was established 70 years ago to maintain land that Ferguson’s husband donated after her death.
All students in Prince George’s County have the opportunity to come and learn about nature and the environment on the property through day and overnight trips, according to foundation Executive Director Theresa Cullen. The Ferguson Foundation has programs for elementary middle and high school students, and even teachers and their families.
The grant money the Ferguson Foundation is receiving is going toward deck repairs on the foundation’s living building. According to Cullen, the foundation’s “living building” is the only one in Maryland, and actually produces a net positive in clean energy and sends it back out to the community.
Cullen said that the Foundation recently lost some federal funding for programming, which means that the potential for more collaboration with the state through ATHA is important.
Both the Accokeek Foundation and Alice Ferguson Foundation are planning on holding major events next year in celebration of the United States’ 250th birthday.
