CHEROKEE, NC: Museum of the Cherokee People has been awarded a major spring grant from the Cherokee Preservation Foundation. The $385,000 grant will support the Museum’s goals to update its public facility, built in 1976, by providing critical funding for architectural schematic drawings for its offsite collections facility, the services of an owner’s representative, capital campaign consultant, strategic plan consultant, and a mini redesign of the Museum’s lobby.
“We are appreciative of the Foundation’s continued investment in the exceptional work of the Museum’s staff to deliver on our mission of perpetuating and preserving the history, culture and stories of the Cherokee people,” says Cory Blankenship (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians), Museum of the Cherokee People Board of Directors. “This investment will advance the work of the Museum in shifting the narrative of how the story of our people and other Indigenous peoples is told.”
The project is aligned with Cherokee Preservation Foundation’s goals to bolster economic development supporting the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and enhance downtown Cherokee’s cultural district. Addressing the Museum’s aging and outdated infrastructure ensures the safety and wellbeing of Museum staff, guests, and the object and archival material collections in its care. By improving the visitor experience in the Museum’s public facility through increased exhibition and programming space and updates to its main galleries, the Museum will tell the Cherokee story as Cherokee people, creating a welcoming, illuminating, and engaging space for Cherokee people and visitors to the Qualla Boundary.
Begun in the spring of 2024, the Museum’s mini lobby redesign project seeks to optimize the Museum’s reception area by removing outdated and broken technology, improving wayfinding, and adding interpretation that reflects MotCP’s visual brand while sharing its mission, vision, and values, with its global visitors during this multiyear renovation. This summer, visitors may enjoy sov·er·eign·ty: Expressions in Sovereignty of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, an exhibition that illuminates the complexities of tribal sovereignty and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ continuing legacy of resilience, through February 28, 2025. ᏗᏓᏂᏏᏍᎩ ᎦᏓᏆᏟ Didanisisgi Gadagwatli: A Showcase of Pottery from the Mud Dauber Community Workshop at the Museum of the Cherokee People, an exhibition of work by students of renowned potter Tara McCoy (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians), is on view through December 6, 2024. Artistic and cultural demonstrations by the Museum’s Atsila Anotasgi Cultural Specialists are included in admission and take place Mondays and Fridays from 10am-3pm.
Support from organizations like Cherokee Preservation Foundation advances the Museum of the Cherokee People’s goal to be a leader in first-voice representation in museums. Historically, Native stories have been told by non-Native voices; as the tribal museum of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians located on the ancestral lands of all Cherokee people, MotCP seeks to be a community space, educational hub, and vibrant starting point for visitors to Cherokee to deepen their understanding of our home and our people.
About Cherokee Preservation Foundation
“The Cherokee Preservation Foundation’s mission is to preserve our native culture, protect and enhance our natural environment, and create appropriate and diverse economic opportunities in order to improve the quality of life for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) and our neighbors in western North Carolina.
Examples of work where we are involved include Cherokee language revitalization, perpetuation of Cherokee artistic traditions, leadership development programs for EBCI tribal members, support of entrepreneurship to diversify the regional economy, connecting rural schools with broadband and helping teachers learn and embrace technology-based learning tools, and renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.
The Foundation was established as part of the Second Amendment to the Tribal-State Compact between the EBCI and the State of North Carolina. We are an independent nonprofit foundation funded by gaming revenues generated by the Tribe. We are not associated with any for-profit gaming entity.”
About the Museum of the Cherokee People
A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established in 1948, the Museum of the Cherokee People is one of the longest-operating tribal museums in the country. Located in Cherokee, North Carolina on the Qualla Boundary, the sovereign land of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and ancestral homelands of all Cherokees, the Museum shares the history, culture, and stories of the Cherokee people through its exhibitions, collections, and programs. Learn more at MotCP.org.
