NOTE: this is NOT the Statue of Liberty - Ellis Island Foundation, but a different group that is the National Park Service fundraising and programmatic non-profit partner for the rehabilitation of the twenty-nine remaining buildings on Ellis Island, with the mission and mandate to raise the funds necessary to create and sustain, within these buildings, the Ellis Island Institute and Conference Center.
Save Ellis Island has an agreement with the National Park Service to fundraise for the rehabilitation, restoration and reuse of buildings mainly on the south side of the island. The National Park Service also works with the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc. Together they raise funds to restore the Great Hall and create The Ellis Island Immigration Museum in 1990.
Save Ellis Island has posted an “urgent appeal” for donations on its Web site (www.saveellisisland.org/site/PageServer), needs to raise about $500,000 in the next few weeks if it is to survive. If it does not, Save Ellis Island will have to return $512,000 in grants that it has already received to restore 30 buildings and repurpose them for public benefit, and work on current projects will be suspended.
You can read more in an article by Robin Pogrebin published in the New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/arts/design/07ellis.html?emc=eta1
My thanks to Lyn Dunham for telling me about the article.
