By Audrey Anderson
Hometown Weekly Reporter
On April 15, the Sherborn Historical Society held a cocktail party fundraiser called 250K for the 250th at the Fireside Tavern in Sherborn to benefit the town’s proposed new home for the Sherborn History Center and Museum. Guests gathered around a central table to partake in appetizers, greet friends, and look over renderings of the society’s new home.
Once everyone gathered, Doug Brown spoke to the group about how the plans for the new History Center and Museum came to be, and how the fundraising effort was progressing. Brown noted that, over one hundred years ago, when William Bradford Homer Dowse donated the Dowse Memorial Library to the town, he stipulated that space be provided for the historical society within the building. Over time, the library became the town office building, and the historical society and its collections occupied the basement of the building.
During COVID, the office building was closed. When it reopened, it was necessary to leave space between workstations to prevent the spread of the virus. As a result, the historical society agreed to pack up its collections and temporarily move them to a storage facility.
A portion of the 1971 library building that was left unfinished in the library’s recent renovation was proposed for the new home of the society and its collections, since the town had agreed to always provide a home for it. After a design firm created plans for the space, the cost was estimated at $1,000,000.
The town will soon vote at the April 29 town meeting and in a subsequent town election on a $600,000 bond for the project. The exciting and surprising news that Brown shared in his remarks was that an anonymous donor, who was not on the society’s radar as a “usual suspect,” agreed to donate $400,000, contingent upon a 2/3 vote for approval in town meeting and a simple majority vote in town balloting.
The goal for the cocktail party fundraiser was to raise $250,000 by April 15, the 250th anniversary of the start of the American Revolution. This money is needed to pay expenses that are not included in the design/build costs. Brown invited guests to donate on that evening through participating in a silent auction and by scanning a QR code on a sign at the event.
Everyone was excited to know that they were getting closer to the reality of creating a beautiful new History Center and Museum for teaching, research, and preservation of valued historical objects. Now, the next focus is to encourage people to attend town meeting, vote for the project and approve it by ballot.
