one by one®: Door County Historical Society
Door County Historical Society is a nonprofit dedicated to the collecting, maintaining and sharing of the history and heritage of Wisconsin’s Door County. The county lies at the tip of a picturesque peninsula on Lake Michigan, and nearly 100 years ago, this organization was established to keep its past alive.
All about preservation and education
The Society operates two interpretive sites. Heritage Village is a collection of nine historic or recreated buildings that represent a crossroads community around the turn of the 19th century. The attraction includes a general store, schoolhouse, chapel, blacksmith shop and more. It’s open during the warmer months, and guided tours are available.
The second interpretive site, Eagle Bluff Lighthouse Museum, offers guests the opportunity to explore a lighthouse where light keepers lived and operated the light from 1868 to 1926. The lighthouse, also open to visitors during the warmer months, is located in Peninsula State Park.
Behind the scenes are just two full-time staff members. During the busy summer months, however, more than a dozen paid employees are part of the activities. Beyond the two core attractions, the Society provides educational community programming. A monthly dinner program featuring a historical theme is among those offerings.
Fundraisers and festivities
From an Apple Festival to Twilight Tours to its Wisconsin’s Wonder Women Series, a variety of special events dot the organization’s programming calendar. One of its marquee events is its Root Beer Festival. Each summer, the family-friendly take on a summer beer festival attracts hundreds of people and often local media attention.
Promotional steins a special keepsake
The 10th annual Root Beer Festival was held in July at Heritage Village. The site’s buildings were open for exploration, and costumed interpreters took on various community roles. There were root beer-related activities including taste tests, history lectures, floats, treats and more.
“We had almost 1,000 people come out,” said Amy Frank, executive director. “It’s definitely grown over the years. It’s one of the largest, if not the largest, of our fundraising events.”
A one by one grant provided the Society with beer steins, which were sold at the event to raise money. “We developed a new logo to encompass both our organization’s name and the name of the festival, so when people take one home, they can remember how much fun the Root Beer Festival was and look forward to coming back again,” she said. “It can even be a conversation piece when they have people over. It brings awareness to our event and our organization.”
For a small nonprofit, the grant allowed the Society to offer a promotional product they could use in the moment to enjoy their root beer, then take home as a keepsake. “Opportunities like this make a huge difference. Every little bit helps,” Frank said. “What this grant did was allow us to offer folks a souvenir to take home and it was something really substantial. We were able to offer a high-quality product and 100% of the sales went back to our organization.”
A note from Cheryl
The annual Root Beer Festival and other programming put on by Door County Historical Society sound like a lot of fun. We were grateful to provide promotional steins to further their fundraising efforts and add extra excitement to this wonderful event. If you’re interested in a one by one grant, visit onebyone.4imprint.com.