Barbara Rafaill from the Delmar & Audria M. Olson Family Foundation and Bengt Sjögren, cutting the ribbon for the new Genealogy Center.

This season has been an exciting one for the Museum and our community. With your support, we raised enough money to welcome back the Andersonville Water Tower to our neighborhood’s skyline, and celebrated with many of you who were there to watch the installation. Shortly after, we were able to secure the purchase of the building adjacent to us at 5217 N. Clark St., which we
plan to utilize as part of our expansion as the Museum continues to grow and increase our street-level presence. Last but certainly not least, we were able to close out our 40th Anniversary Campaign after raising almost $1 million thanks to your generosity.

While the tower and the new building acquisition were both financed separately from our 40th Anniversary Campaign, all of your donations for various Museum projects over the past year have
helped us work toward achieving the Museum’s long-term goals of sustainability and growth. As we approach 2018 and the end of our 40th anniversary celebration, we would like to thank all of you who supported the Museum in our endeavors to continue keeping Swedish history and culture alive on Clark Street during this important milestone.

Thanks to our donors, our 40th Anniversary Campaign has helped us create dedicated space for our
updated Genealogy Center, and allowed us to improve our second-floor exhibit space in order to better serve our visitors. We are now able to host additional special exhibits in our new second-floor art gallery that was once occupied by our conference room. Additionally, we raised $10,000 from individual genealogy donors, along with a generous matching grant of $10,000 from the Delmar
and Audria M. Olson Family Foundation, that allowed us to update our Genealogy Center with new technology and expanded public access to help our visitors research their history, connect with
their roots and discover new family members.

Also, thanks in large part to generous donations of $100,000 from Verdandi I.O.S. #3 and $75,000 from the American Daughters of Sweden to aid us in the development of a new commercial-grade kitchen, we will soon be able to help keep the taste of Sweden alive in Andersonville with
Nordic-fare favorites once the kitchen updates have been completed. With the recent closures of local Swedish businesses, we believe it is more important than ever to continue our work of making Andersonville a vibrant neighborhood that showcases our significant Scandinavian history.

We are looking forward to this new chapter as we come to the close of our anniversary celebration, and we plan to take the Museum to even greater heights in the next 40 years and beyond due to your support. Many thanks to everyone who donated to our 40th Anniversary Campaign, and special thanks to those who made contributions of almost $950,000.

– Allison Deerr