July 9, 2024 - WASHINGTON - The National Park Service (NPS) on Monday announced $623,077 in grants for 10 projects from across the country to support the protection of America’s native cultures. 

“The National Park Service is committed to preserving our cultural heritage and history across the country,” said National Park Service Director Chuck Sams. “These grants further that goal by helping American Indian Tribes and Native Alaskan and Hawaiian communities connect with the stories of their past.” 

This year’s grants will support projects like: 

• In Nevada, the Walker River Paiute Tribe will survey and inventory three identified pictograph and petroglyph sites. In addition, the project will work to interview and collect information from Tribal and community members detailing additional locations of these valuable cultural sites which are crucial to maintaining the Tribe’s understanding of their history and cultural knowledge.     

• In Louisiana, the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe will develop an archival repository of oral histories, cultural workshops, and traditional songs captured on digital video, audio, and still photography so that all Tribal members have access to their history and culture. 

• In Alaska, the Native Village of Chenega, a remote Alutiiq community, will preserve its cultural heritage through a wooden mask carving workshop. Through professional documentation, including photography and videography, the project will preserve these traditional skills for future generations. 

Other projects funded by these grants will locate and identify cultural resources, preserve historic properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places, support comprehensive preservation planning, preserve oral history and cultural traditions, provide training for building a historic preservation program, and support cultural and historic preservation interpretation and education. 

Congress appropriated funding for the Tribal Heritage Grant Program in 2023 through the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF), which uses revenue from federal oil leases on the Outer Continental Shelf to assist with a broad range of preservation projects without expending tax dollars, with the intent to mitigate the loss of a nonrenewable resource to benefit the preservation of other irreplaceable resources. 

Established in 1977, the HPF is authorized at $150 million per year through 2024 and has provided more than $2 billion in historic preservation grants to states, Tribes, local governments, and nonprofit organizations.  

Administered by the NPS, HPF funds may be appropriated by Congress to support a variety of historic preservation projects to help preserve the nation’s cultural resources. Other HPF grant programs managed by NPS fund preservation of America’s premier cultural resources and historic places in underrepresented communities, as well as sites key to the representation of historically Black colleges and universities, African American civil rights, and the history of equal rights in America. 
 

Awards 
 

For more information about the grants and the Tribal Heritage Grant program, please visit http://go.nps.gov/tribalheritage. Applications for at least $500,000 in 2024 funding will be available in fall 2024. 

For more information about NPS historic preservation programs and grants, please visit nps.gov/stlpg/ 
Source: NPS