Main fundraiser photo

Battleship New Jersey YouTube Education Fund

Tax deductible
Friends and supporters,

Battleship New Jersey needs to raise $20,000 to continue educating the public online over the next six months.



In response to the pandemic, the Battleship is closing on September 8, 2020. The ship will reopen when changes in pandemic restrictions make the Museum more economically viable, likely in the spring of 2021.

While the Museum is closed, almost all the staff - including myself - will be furloughed. This could end our education program.



Over the next six months, it will cost $20,000 to maintain a daily online education presence. For that amount, the Museum can continue to produce daily content across all our social media platforms as well as continue to create daily videos for our YouTube channel. We can continue outreach and perform the distance-learning programs that were developed and implemented throughout the quarantine.

Since being reconstituted in 2018, the Battleship’s education program has become a core part of the Museum’s mission and reached tens of thousands of guests. Since the pandemic started, we have transitioned from doing in-person tours and programs to digital programming. In addition to Skyping and Zooming into classrooms and libraries, we have created perhaps the most prolific and successful museum YouTube channel in the region at: www.youtube.com/battleshipnewjersey



While museums around the world cut their education departments to save money during the pandemic, the Battleship intentionally flipped that traditional thinking on its head and has become a community leader in digital programming. Our mission is to educate, and we cannot do that without an education program.

The summer is normally our busiest season. However, with the ongoing global pandemic, some weeks saw just 10% of the guests who would normally explore the Battleship. With numbers that low, and our events and award-winning overnight sleepover program suspended indefinitely, we have not been able to make enough to heat, light, and staff the massive Battleship. We have gone through all the grant funding and government support we had to make it through the summer.



This Museum cannot afford to be silent for six months. Nor can our community afford to lose all the work we need to do during that time. I believe in this enough that I will be donating my time to this project, as well as a chunk of the down payment I have been saving for a future house.



Any amount you can pledge towards our education program to get us through the next six months will make a huge difference for the Museum and will earn my personal gratitude.

Thank you so much,
Ryan

Ryan Szimanski
Director of Curatorial & Educational Affairs
Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial
https://www.battleshipnewjersey.org/


PS feel free to get my contact info off the battleship's website above if you have any questions about what this money will go towards and why its vital to the museum.

Donations 

  • John Gillette
    • $50 
    • 3 yrs

Organizer

Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial .
Organizer
Camden, NJ
Home Port Alliance for the USS New Jersey, Inc. (Battleship New Jersey Museum & Memorial)
 
Registered nonprofit
Donations are typically 100% tax deductible in the US.

Your easy, powerful, and trusted home for help

  • Easy

    Donate quickly and easily.

  • Powerful

    Send help right to the people and causes you care about.

  • Trusted

    Your donation is protected by the  GoFundMe Giving Guarantee.