From today's Richmond Times-Dispatch:

[see also the museum's web site: http://www.vafire-police.org/]

Virginia Fire, Police Museum To Close
$125,000 Would Keep It Open

BY JANET CAGGIANO
Aug 22, 2002

Unable to overcome mounting financial woes, the Virginia Fire and Police

Museum will close Sept. 1.

The move does not mean officials are giving up on the historic site on
West
Marshall Street. They hope to organize a memorial event at the museum on
Sept. 11
to remember the victims of the terrorist attacks.

Volunteers will spend next month trying one last time to raise $125,000
to keep
the museum operating.

If the money is raised, the museum will reopen Oct. 1. If not, its
closing will be
permanent.

"We are looking for a miracle," said Susan Longest, the museum's
director since
1999. "We have done everything we can do. But we are out of time."

Former Richmond police officer Cheryl Ann Nici is volunteering to assist
the
board in its last-ditch effort to raise the funds. Longest and Vicki
Mollenauer, the
museum's assistant director, will continue to apply for grants.

Can Richmond really afford to lose another part of its history?" Nici
asked.
"Who now will tell these stories?"

The museum was hit hard last year when state budget cuts were announced.

Since then, it has lost $100,000 in state funding ($50,000 a year) and
another
$100,000 in matching grants. Longest and Mollenauer went 13 months
without
getting paid, and other volunteers pitched in to keep the museum open.

But it wasn't enough. The museum was forced to cut back its hours and
reduce
its staff to two.

In April, officials set June 1 as the deadline for raising $125,000 -
the minimum
needed to keep the museum operating for one year.

A month later, the museum sold the last of three parcels it owned near
the
museum for $70,000. That was enough to bring the museum out of debt and
pay
salaries to Longest and Mollenauer.

With things looking a bit brighter, board members voted to keep the
museum
open on a month-to-month basis. But since April, donations have totaled
just
$12,483.44. The museum has applied for 56 grants, but was rejected on
all but one
($5,000 from Capital One).

"Everyone we applied to said we were financially unstable," Longest
said. "I can
understand that, but somebody really needed to step forward and give us
a
chance."

The museum is housed in Steamer Company Number 5, which served as a fire

station from 1849 to 1968 and was a temporary police office and jail
from 1865 to
1898.

The museum opened in 1981, providing exhibits on fire and police
history.
Educators have taught thousands of children about fire safety.

Designated a national landmark in 1995, the museum owns more than 800
historic photographs, 200 fire and police logbooks, 600 badges, helmets
from the
1700s, uniforms, hose and chemical carts, a 1790 ladder truck and a 1906
steam
engine.

If the $125,000 is not raised by the end of next month, the board will
have to
decide what to do with those artifacts. Items on loan to the museum will
be returned
to owners.

"I can't imagine walking out of the museum a last time," Longest said.
"It's just
too sad. It is very disappointing, the closing of any historical
institution, but to lose all
this history is devastating."





--

~~~

Ray Bonis
Special Collections and Archives
James Branch Cabell Library
901 Park Ave. VCU Box 842033
Richmond, VA 23284-2033

(804) 828-1108
[log in to unmask]
www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/speccoll.html

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