SEABROOK is... RESEARCH... We attract student and faculty scholars from Amherst College, Bates, Princeton, Northwestern, Armstrong Atlantic State, University, Georgia Southern University, University of GA, University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture and The Savannah College of Art and Design. Our research is key to our authenticity. EDUCATION... We offered the Georgia's first Field School devoted to social studies teacher recertification and to undergraduate and graduate study in public history, oral history and archaeology. Our tour programs satisfy Georgia Quality Core Curriculum requirements for PK-12. Our interactive education is tailored for: individual, family and community (PK-3), cultures (4 & 6), U.S. History (5 & 11), Georgia History (8), and secondary courses in anthropology, sociology, Southern culture and literature. We conduct conferences and seminars for the public and for college student groups and outreach programs for local schools and colleges plus on -site college-connected programs and internships in museum studies, historic restoration, anthropology, sociology, history, Southern studies, architecture and historic preservation. We also conduct seminars in business, management, history, folklore, folklife, crafts, archival management and docent training for local residents. We offer an enthusiastically-received, free summer history camp to local youngsters and we are developing a new Girl Scout-Seabrook badge. INTERACTIVE LIVING HISTORY... All Seabrook programs offer hands-on experience in turn-of-the-century history, from making a moss mattress to going to class in the one-room school house. Our environment of old buildings, activities and engaging docents is the catalyst for idea exchange. We get visitors thinking and it starts them talking....about everything from race relations to their new appreciation for the food we casually eat. HISTORIC PRESERVATION... We began by saving our doomed, one-room, African-American school house. To date, we have restored eight structures, stabilized another and have seven more to move and to restore. Initially, no one understood the need to save this sort of vernacular architecture. Today, we are asked to speak to preservation groups about our project because it is recognized, that these buildings are essential to making the lessons of past life and culture come alive and live on. In October 1998, Seabrook served as host for an educational field session for the National Trust for Historic Preservation annual conference. CULTURAL PRESERVATION... We now have 104 acres on which to present a comprehensive African-American, rural, coastal experience of the Post-Civil War era from 1865-1930. In those days, little was written down and, without Seabrook's program, the early customs, folklore, family and farming ways would be lost forever. More importantly, we could never fully appreciate the determination, strength, cooperation, ingenuity and pride it took to secure the "new freedom" for generations to come. HONORS AND AWARDS... In 1995 Seabrook received one of 12 Cultural Olympiad Awards for "excellence and innovative programming in the humanities" selected from the 12 state Southern Region. In April 1997, Past-President Laura Devendorf was a panelist for the American Association of Museums annual meeting and conference. Our staff has addressed the regional meeting of the Association of Living History, Family and Agricultural Museums. Our local artifacts are included in Africa in America, a 3-year, $5,000,000 traveling exhibition assembled by the Chicago's Field Museum. The Seabrook Model of a "successful grassroots effort to preserve a dying culture" is discussed in lectures given from Senegal to South America. Seabrook Village was also the recipient of the 1997 Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism Award for Best Tourism Product Development in the state. In 1996, the DOT and National Trust for Historic Preservation featured Seabrook as they jointly recognized the Liberty Trail--for which Seabrook served as a leader--as one of the best twenty-five projects funded with federal ISTEA monies. COLLECTIONS... Seabrook's artifacts include pieces from the Willis Hakim Jones Material Culture Collection, the academically renowned Cyrus Bowens Grave Sculpture donated by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and the Land of Allyon Exhibit about the earliest European colony in what would become the continental U.S. Research shows a strong likelihood that the colony existed very near Seabrook. It had the first slave colony and the first slave rebellion and is important in showing early minority influences in the colonization of America. We also have a diverse collection of local structures, furniture and memorabilia. RACIAL HARMONY... From our bi-racial board of directors to our interns, volunteers and support groups, Seabrook is an example of how races can interact, enjoy mutual understanding, provide mutual support and learn mutual respect by working together toward a common goal. Our premise, that everyone enjoys equal importance for their special contribution to the project, makes this happen for all of us. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT... Our local annual income is $11,431 and we consistently have the region's highest unemployment. Seabrook offers job training and continuing education for all ages and at all levels for the jobs which will materialize as we expand and attract more visitors. These include farming, museum and retail management, business training, promotion, publicity, hospitality training, history, etc. We have been a key force in heritage tourism in our county and region. Our crafts project is taking hold with dolls and brooms now sold in Savannah. We grow a unique agricultural product which is in the trade mark stage. (We test-marketed it to great interest and will introduce it next fall. This venture, especially if we export our product, also will allow local African-American farmers to keep their land and resist pressures from increasing property taxes and development.) We are currently engaged in a joint promotional venture with a Savannah candy company which will link our farms and their historic product. Our gift shop is extensive and well-regarded and we are embarking on a line of "makin' do" furniture. We have continuing need for restorationists and educators. And our open planning and idea sessions continue to broaden job potential. MISSION STATEMENT... Seabrook Village Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit corporation dedicated to research, education and the authentic portrayal, through its living history site, of coastal Georgia's rural, African-American history and culture from 1865-1930. WHO BENEFITS? Locally: Seabrook residents will benefit through renewed preservation of and through new respect given to their past. They will gain new economic opportunities through the expanded education and job training the program will provide. State and Nationwide: Educational systems, and people everywhere will gain new insights into our authentic past. They will see our model of grassroots determination as we secure a better and more meaningful life today through community enterprise. They will experience our example of racial harmony. Internationally: Through increased foreign visitation, people will learn to appreciate the true American people and their past and the role minorities played in the settlement of America. They will also become a larger market for local economic programs through international marketing of our products and through tourism. Sponsors: Through naming opportunities inherent in all segments of this project, sponsors will continue to be recognized for this important work. Their names will be known even more extensively as Seabrook attracts more and more people worldwide.
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| Copyright © 2007 Seabrook Village. All rights reserved. This site was created in part by BBRED at Georgia Southern University with Regional ICAPP funds. Funding for web hosting provided by the Liberty County Development Authority. |
