Weeksville Heritage Center Needs Your Help

CROWN HEIGHTS —  The Weeksville Heritage Center in Crown Heights will have to shutter in July if the historic house museum doesn’t raise enough money, the museum says.

Now in its 51st year, the museum, located at 158 Buffalo Avenue, needs funding to maintain its cultural facilities which focus on a section of Brooklyn known as one of the nation’s first free black communities. Organizers launched a crowdfunding campaign April 30 on Crowdrise, the non-profit arm of GoFund Me.

“Without this fundraiser, we don’t know if we can make it to July or August,” said Rob Fields, the center’s president and executive director.

Fields went onto say with additional funding, the non-profit will have time to consider other sustainable sources of funding. Currently, the center is heavily dependant on grant money from city, state, federal and private donors.

As of this post, the organization raised $740 of its $200,000 goal with contributions from8 people so far.

Staff at the 23,000 sq. ft. education center host arts, cultural and educational events surrounding the historic district. The non-profit also maintains the Historic Hunterfly Road Houses, a group of wood-frame vernacular-style houses in Bedford Stuyvesant Houses that date back to the mid-1800s.