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Grants and awards | January 13, 2021

Local history grants available now

Local history groups looking to preserve, record and share their town’s history are being encouraged to apply for Public Record Office Victoria’s Local History Grants Program.  

Applications are now open for grants of up to $15,000 to assist local community groups, sports clubs, schools and other organisations that collect and preserve the stories of our region.

The Nationals Member for Lowan Emma Kealy said the grants aimed to support local community groups planning or currently working on projects to secure their stories for generations to come.

Local projects previously supported through the program include:

• The Murtoa Stick Shed Committee of Management – $8646 for an informative website and signage project
• The Halls Gap and Grampians Historical Society – $1687 for online cataloguing
• Hindmarsh, Horsham Rural City, West Wimmera and Yarriambiack councils – $6500 for a joint ‘Community Stories – Local Emergencies’ project to provide a digital platform to document photos and reflections of emergency events that have impacted on local lives
• Horsham Historical Society – $2049 to purchase computers to allow community access to the group’s digitised collection of photos and records and to digitise cassette tapes of interviews
• The Kaniva District Historical Society – $14,836 to work with the State Library to digitise copies of the Lawloit Times between 1910 and 1929 as part of an ongoing project to digitise copies of all regional newspapers issued last century.

Ms Kealy said the diversity of past successful projects demonstrated how important it was to preserve our local history for future generations to enjoy.

“The Lowan electorate has a vibrant history with many important local stories to share and preserve,” she said.

“It’s been fantastic to see a number of history groups and other organisations from across our region successfully secure a local history grant to pursue their own local projects.

“I encourage all local historical societies, schools, sporting clubs and specialist interest groups to apply for this grant to help share their stories.”

The Local History Grants Program is now open to all not-for-profit community groups.

Applications close at midnight on 9 March 2021.

For further information or to apply visit https://prov.vic.gov.au/community/grants-and-awards/local-history-grants-program.