The Camden County History Alliance announced today that it was selected by the New Jersey Historic Trust for a state grant from the Discover New Jersey History License Plate Fund for Heritage Tourism to begin work on the Camden County Heritage Tourism Plan.
The Camden County History Alliance was formed in February 2016 as a partnership of over 40 Camden County (NJ) historic sites, historical societies, and preservation and support organizations. The History Alliance’s purpose is to identify resources, increase the number of visitors, and institute projects that promote Camden County heritage. The Camden County Historical Society administers the programs and initiatives of the History Alliance, including the twice annual Camden County Heritage magazine, a new historic signage program, and the upcoming Heritage Tourism Plan.
The $5,000 grant project to the History Alliance through the Historical Society is the first phase of a three-phase Heritage Tourism Plan. The state-grant-funded project includes an online survey of all Camden County History Alliance partners, a written executive summary and final report of survey results, and the identification of three to five thematic interpretive trails to link together the organizations so they can be jointly marketed as heritage tourism attractions. The survey results will be useful for future advocacy, education programming, and planning purposes. In later phases of the Heritage Tourism Plan, the History Alliance will create a series of heritage trails for joint marketing purposes to encourage more people to visit Camden County History Alliance partner sites.
The grant project will take three months and will begin in August 2017. The research is being conducted by Donna Ann Harris of Heritage Consulting Inc., a Philadelphia-based WBE consulting firm specializing in historic preservation and heritage tourism. This project has been accomplished with financial assistance from the New Jersey Historic Trust through the Discover NJ History License Plate Heritage Tourism Grant Program.
About the License Plate Grant
The Discover NJ History License Plate Fund provides small grants (up to $5,000) to develop and promote visitor-ready sites as heritage tourism destinations. These technical assistance grants may be used to promote interpretation, marketing links among heritage sites; to assess visitor readiness of a heritage site or sites; to establish performance evaluation systems; and to provide training initiatives, workshops, and educational activities that foster the goals and objectives of the NJ Heritage Tourism Plan. The grant program is supported by income from sales and renewals of the Discover NJ History License plate, which was established in 1995 to support historic preservation activities.
About the Camden County Historical Society
The Camden County Historical Society has been dedicated to the collection, preservation, study, interpretation, and cultural enrichment of life in Camden County and Southern New Jersey since 1899. The Historical Society manages a small campus of buildings in the Parkside neighborhood of Camden. The society has maintained and restored the c. 1726 historic house museum Pomona Hall since 1924. Other campus buildings include the Charles S. Boyer building, which contains the Hineline Research Library and a handicapped-accessible auditorium. As part of the campus, the Camden County Museum has been housed here since 1967. Finally, on the second floor of Pomona Hall is the Camden County History Room, which hosts temporary changing exhibits about Camden County history.