Washington Trust for Historic Preservation

After two years of relative isolation and innumerable zoom meetings, 2022 was the year when the Washington Trust gratefully welcomed the return of in-person events and field services. We hosted our annual vintage Washington fundraiser at the Historic asuw shell house on the university of Washington campus in seattle. We roamed port townsend with 38 high school students from across the state for our youth heritage project. We reveled in an in-person revitalizewa conference in beautiful downtown wenatchee. Our staff conducted site visits across the state, from blaine to spokane, walla walla to aberdeen. While event rentals and attendance numbers at the stimson-green mansion rebounded slightly in 2022, we continued to offer opportunities for public engagement. We hosted our monthly educational tours throughout 2022, showing off the interior and exterior rehabilitation projects that we accomplished in the previous two years, and some rental events (such as weddings) took place sporadically throughout the year. We did not complete any major capital projects in 2022, but we began fundraising for a roof replacement and concurrent solar panel installation on both the mansion and carriage house, slated to take place in the summer of 2023.with four dedicated staff members, the Washington state main street program was able to double its community services and outreach to local main street programs in 72 communities around the state. Much of the year was spent continuing initiatives begun in 2021 such as the main street planning grant program and main street affiliate capacity building grant program. With support from dahp, we also produced a main street resiliency study, which illustrated the speed at which main street businesses rebounded from the pandemic compared to other areas without main street organizations.after a several years' hiatus, the revitalizewa conference was back in full force in october when it was held for the first time in the fall. The event brought 295 attendees to downtown wenatchee for three days of place-based learning and network-building. The annual excellence on main awards were once again presented as a live event in conjunction with the conference. In addition to the ongoing work on our 20 active most endangered places campaigns around the state, we had saves to celebrate as well. This included the national guard of Washington armory in bellingham, the reard freed farmhouse in sammamish, and the lacrosse rock houses. The april reopening of the newly rehabilitated beverly bridge over the columbia river south of vantage was celebrated at our vintage Washington event in may 2022. Additionally, two sites were added to our most endangered places list: the chinatown-international district in seattle and the parkland school in tacoma. In the summer and fall of 2022, our revisiting Washington (revisitwa) heritage tourism website saw the successful launch of the japanese american remembrance trail tour in partnership with the wing luke museum. The tour was promoted in person at the wing luke's hai! Japantown festival in september as well as a virtual discussion panel in november.in april 2022, we completed our maritime Washington national heritage area management plan, which strategized the area's directional guidance, key functions, branding/marketing, interpretive themes, implementation tactics, and fundraising and financial strategies. The 495-page management plan was then submitted to the national park service and the department of the interior for approval. The plan's approval in october by the department of the interior represented the culmination of a three-year collaborative planning process that brought diverse interests together to develop a vision for this new program and made maritime Washington a full-fledged national heritage area. In july 2022, we held our ninth annual youth heritage project (yhp) for high school students for the first time since 2019. Yhp took place in port townsend and centered around interpretation and storytelling related to the maritime Washington national heritage area. 38 high school students and 8 teachers/mentors attended free of charge thanks to generous funding from the national park service, the Washington state department of archaeology & Historic Preservation, and 4culture sustained support, among others.