WATERFORD FOUNDATION INC
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Mission Statement
The Waterford Foundation preserves the historic buildings and open spaces of the National Historic Landmark District of Waterford, Virginia; and, through education, increases the public's knowledge of life and work in an early American rural community.
About This Cause
The Waterford Foundation is a grassroots organization dedicated to preserving and interpreting the Waterford National Historic Landmark. That Landmark, 40 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., encompasses the early Quaker village of Waterford and its extraordinary collection of 18th and 19th century buildings set within 1,420 acres of rolling farmland. Since its creation in 1943, the Foundation has worked diligently to acquire, ease and restore or rehabilitate historically significant buildings within the village. It currently owns 12 buildings and three tracts of land, and has purchased, eased and resold many other properties. The Foundation has also gone to great lengths to protect surrounding open space from inappropriate development that would destroy the 270-year-old visual connection between the old mill town and the farms it served. In the process the Foundation has acquired a national reputation as a model community-based preservation organization. In 1970 the U.S. Department of the Interior validated the Foundation’s decades of pioneering work by establishing the national historic landmark district. Waterford today has more properties under preservation easement than any other location in Virginia. For over 70 years the Waterford Foundation has developed a broad array of educational outreach programs to complement its preservation work. Its annual Waterford Fair is Virginia’s oldest juried crafts fair and one of its more popular. More than 10,000 visit each October to enjoy demonstrations of early-American crafts, music and dance, and living history. Since 1984 the Foundation has conducted a highly successful living history program in Waterford’s 1867 one –room school for African Americans. Each spring and fall regional school children take on the identities of actual 19th century counterparts in a memorable morning-long program led buy trained, costumed docents. To date, more than 30,000 students have participated in this program, which is provided at no cost to local schools. The Foundation also hosts popular concert and lecture series, often featuring nationally prominent musicians, authors and speakers. Walking tours and published histories share with the public the fascinating past of an early mill village founded by progressive Pennsylvania Quakers in 1733, a place that in the 19th century found itself painfully torn between North and South. In 2016 the Foundation launched the Waterford Craft School to connect master artisans with students in immersive weekend workshops. Since its launch, the school has expanded to include shorter classes and children's summer camps. As a bootstrap organization, the Foundation has operated almost entirely without public funds. It has relied instead on a partnership with local property owners and the dedication of hundreds of volunteers and private donors who share an appreciation of Waterford's charm as a living village of irreplaceable value to local and natural history.