The Rockford Preservation Society is pleased to announce the launch of the Remember Rockford capital campaign.
The goal of the campaign is to raise $385,000 to restore Rockford’s circa 1797 Masonic Lodge and circa 1830 York Tavern, and to complete the development of a historic park at the site of the circa 1796 Grant-Burrus Hotel.
This is the first capital campaign in the history of the 35-year-old preservation society, which has depended on small grants, donations and volunteer labor to improve its properties. Its restored sites include the 1900 Post Office, the 1850 Dudley Glass store, and the 1914 Rockford Methodist Church.
“While we have made steady progress over the past three decades, we recognize that to finish the job this organization was created to do, our restoration effort must have broad and sustained support,” says RPS President Hannah Holyfield. “We sincerely hope the entire community will rally around this campaign, which is being undertaken by folks who simply love Rockford and want to honor the families who over the past 218 years have made it such a special place.”
To ensure the continued upkeep of the organization’s historic buildings, the capital campaign’s long-term goal is the establishment of a permanent maintenance endowment.
A major thrust of the Remember Rockford campaign is for the village to reconnect with the descendants of families for whom Rockford is an ancestral home. 
“The campaign offers these descendants a real opportunity to preserve for future generations of their families their heritage and their home,” says Ms. Holyfield. “We are going to work with genealogical groups and with ancestry sites on the Internet to reach out to descendants who may have only minimal knowledge about their ancestors’ lives here but would like to know more. We plan to contact these descendants and ask them to help us restore the village and then, literally, to come back home.”
The culmination of the “Remember Rockford” campaign will be a Remember Rockford Families Reunion to be held in 2009. The reunion date will be set in the coming months.
The Grant-Burrus Hotel site, the Masonic Lodge and the York Tavern are key historical properties in the village. The park is at the southern gateway to the village and will be an ideal venue for community events such as concerts and historical presentations. In the first week of October, preservation society directors led three tours through the village, including one for 120 school children.
The lodge and tavern, across the street from each other, are in the center of the village. Once they are restored, they will house historical displays and should be ideal settings for small businesses that complement the village’s unique historical character.
The completion of these signature projects will naturally enhance the region’s growing tourism industry. The village is on the banks of the Yadkin River, and there are 11 vineyards within a five-mile radius of the Village of Rockford, making this the most concentrated area of vineyards in this federally designated American Viticultural Area.
Vital to the success of the Remember Rockford campaign is the registration of a large number of people with ties to the village. To enable those both near and far to join the campaign, the preservation society has created this Web site, www.rememberrockford.com.
The site will be updated regularly, and everyone who registers online will receive campaign updates and timely information about news and upcoming events in the village. Campaign donations can be made online or by regular mail.
“We hope local volunteers will contact us. We will need lots of help combing the Internet and spreading the word within extended families about what is going on in Rockford,” says Ms. Holyfield. “And I hope our neighbors will join us at campaign events over the next 12 to 18 months to welcome these descendants as, together, we remember Rockford.” Register Now. |
