June 4, 2010
Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation
Media Contact: Christy Fleming 307-250-5542
NPS Grant Helps ILC Advance Toward $5.3 Million Goal
The Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center capital campaign has generated nearly $4.6 million to date and
is within $730,000 of its $5.3 million goal, it was announced by Douglas W. Nelson, Heart Mountain, Wyoming
Foundation Fundraising Chair.
"This remarkable achievement is a testament to the tenacity and leadership of the HMWF and its Fundraising
Committee," Nelson said in making the announcement. "We are indeed fortunate to have garnered support from
a number of major foundations, the U.S. government, corporations, and hundreds of individual donors."
Largest among the most recent gifts is a $832,879 grant under the Japanese American Confinement Site Grant
Program (Public Law 109-441) administered by the National Park Service. In its second round of grant awards,
the National Park Service announced funding for 23 projects. The new NPS grant was the largest among the
2010 grants and will be used to construct the ILC's interior build-out and complete some final site infrastructure,
including the parking lot and driveway asphalt, miscellaneous concrete work, parking lot lighting, and water
treatment. The grant represents the second given under the JACS program in support of the ILC. Previously in
2009, the NPS approved $292,252 to complete Phase II of the ILC’s exterior shell.
Newly announced among major gifts and pledges complementing the NPS grants are: $250,000 from the Ford
Foundation; $100,000 from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, an additional $50,000 from the Wyoming Cultural
Trust; $50,000 from the Knight Foundation, $25,000 from American Airlines in honor Norman Y. Mineta;
additional $100,000 from the Higuchi Family; an anonymous $100,000 donation naming a replicated barracks in
honor of Bacon Sakatani; additional $42,000 from Douglas and Linda Nelson; and additional $16,552 from
LaDonna Zall.
These and other contributions have been made within the framework of efforts to preserve the historic Wyoming
site while also teaching a compelling lesson about the fragility of our constitutional rights.
The number of individual donors continues to grow steadily each year, and we now have approximately 1,050 on
our roster, surpassing the ’09 total by 12 per cent. This includes 45 new givers who designated their gifts as part
of the Annie E. Casey Children’s Fund to commemorate my retirement as AEC chief executive officer earlier this
year.
Meanwhile, the Fundraising Committee, which includes co-chairs Shirley Ann Higuchi and Raymond Uno along
with Dave Reetz, Pat Wolfe, Tak Hoshizaki, and Alan Kumamoto, continues to work closely with the Program
Committee to ensure that the ILC is completed as scheduled in 2011 and serves as a fitting reminder of what
took place six decades earlier.
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