May 21, 2015
High Gear Programs Report
By: Teri Muse

Author and historian Roger Freely began his presentation by asking everyone to name the first museum they remember visiting. After taking us down a stroll down memory lane, he talked about the crisis American museums are in because of 4 reasons:
1) Financing—while most museums are non-profit and exempt for sales taxes they are not exempt from property taxes which continue to increase. Many museums don’t charge an entrance fee and rely on donations
2) Low Attendance—After 9/11 many people stopped visiting museums which means less donations.
3) Lack of Volunteers—Many museums rely on volunteers to keep them running
4) Need artifacts—we were all encouraged to look in our garages for old things that we can donate to a local museum.

Roger stressed to Rotarians that we need to help promote museums to keep them alive and save our history. He recommended a website www.museums.usa.com that lists all the museums in the United States.

We were all encouraged to visit our local museums and donate $5 instead of $1 to cover the four other people who don’t donate…..and to take a friend along with us!