Last month The Clack Family Heritage Museum received a grant from the Rivers and Area Community Foundation in the amount of $1250 to be used towards restoration of the buildings. Combined with a grant of $1,000 from RACF in 2015 and a grant from the Brandon Community Foundation, there has been much progress on the original buildings that house the collection.
The following is a brief history and project update from Marg Burt, one of the board members of the Museum Foundation.
Clack brothers Doug, Tim, and Fred lived and farmed in the Blanchard Municipality for many years. They all had a great interest in collecting antiques. In 1983 the first steel shed (30’ X 60’) was constructed. It has grown over the years to a total of 20 museum buildings.
In 1996 Tim, who was the only living brother, felt that he needed some help so he turned over their collection to Clack Family Heritage Museum Foundation. Tim remained as chairman of the board until his death in 2014. Today we are a volunteer board of twelve members.
In 2014 the board made a decision that, in order to keep all of the buildings open, a maintenance plan needed to be put into place. The floors and some of the walls in the six themed rooms were in bad shape. Our plan was to try to repair one building each year.
We are so thankful to The Rivers and Area Community Foundation and The Brandon Area Community Foundation for their support over these past three years. With their support we have four of the buildings sporting new floors and a fresh coat of paint. Board members and volunteers worked very hard at these projects. We have done a lot of fundraising over the past two years and community support has been super. This summer through a grant from Community Places, we were able to put a ventilation system into these buildings.
We are proud of our accomplishments. Next summer will be another busy one as we continue doing floors and walls.
We have had a lot of great remarks about the improvements that have been made at the museum, and we are always happy to share that it was all made possible through grants received from the Rivers and Area Community Foundation as well as the Brandon Area Community Foundation.
