For more than 300 years, atop a sunny, southern Maryland hilltop overlooking the Patuxent River — the mighty Chesapeake Bay in the distance — Sotterley has beckoned to travelers and visitors. It has always been a place dedicated to meaningful purpose. Today, Sotterley visitors arrive by car, bus, and sometimes, still by water. But the bounty they take home is no less rich and no less relevant for a changing America.
Today Sotterley has an increasingly urgent purpose: Connection. Sotterley is more than a National Historic Landmark. It is a peerless asset that exists to help people find connection, connection to our history, to the land, to our common values and connection to one another. To secure Sotterley’s ability to deepen its impact and serve even more people, we invite you to join us as we plan a special fundraising initiative.
Campaign Special Edition Newsletter
Campaign Dedication
The Board of Trustees for Historic Sotterley is embarking on The Campaign for Sotterley in honor of
John Hanson Briscoe and Agnes Kane Callum
Descendants, respectively, of a Sotterley owner and of an enslaved family that lived and worked here. These two came together more than two decades ago to help us write a new story for Sotterley. Their inspirational dedication gave us new life and helped us ensure that this irreplaceable National Historic Landmark remains a truth-telling model for future generations.
In 2016, Newman’s Own Foundation awarded Historic Sotterley a 4-year empowerment grant to strengthen Sotterley’s ability to embark on the road to sustainability. Newman’s Own Foundation believed that this community treasure was worthy of support and suggested a comprehensive strategy with goals and benchmarks to address Sotterley’s challenges and opportunities. Over the last two years, Sotterley has met those goals and benchmarks. The Campaign for Sotterley is a two-year funding project to raise $1 million to enhance and expand our stories and programming. Newman’s Own Foundation has pledged $225,000 as a challenge for Sotterley’s friends, members, and family, to show their commitment with a significant gift to our future.
Our aim is to touch more lives and have an even greater impact on our local, state, and national communities through these main areas of focus: Education Without Boundaries, Growing for Good, Saving our Treasures, Building a Better Community, and “Necessary” Functions.
Our schools increasingly struggle to meet the comprehensive needs of students, each new generation faces an even more tenuous connection to knowledge.
TODAY, a field trip to Sotterley is a “hands-on” day of discovery
TOMORROW, our top priorities are enhanced & expanded programs to reach more children and adult learners. Ask us about how you can help fund Education Without Boundaries, contact us today!
A simple browser search can bring the universe into the palm of our hand – while increasingly separating us from the full reality of life.
TODAY, Sotterley provides an opportunity to freely walk where history happened, to engage all our senses, to see through the eyes of our forebears, to imagine their feelings, to dream our own futures.
TOMORROW, our top priorities are restoring, repairing, reinterpreting and researching our several key structures, landscapes, and artifacts throughout the grounds. Ask how you can help ensure a lasting, living history at Sotterley, contact us today!
Our nation continues to experience disconnections born of racial divides while coupled with modern technology meant to unite, but ultimately isolating us behind electronic walls.
TODAY, Sotterley helps visitors and participants access the stories of all who lived and worked here, in honest ways, allowing individuals to understand and process at their own pace, while setting the stage for further discovery.
TOMORROW, our top priorities are providing more interactive ways of continuing the discussions for understanding, healing, and transformation. An informed, empathetic community is critical to remove barriers to healthy relationships and inspire action.
Ask us how you support ensures common ground and a stronger community, contact us today!
The advent of big box grocery stores, processed foods, and commercialization has fragmented our connection to the food we eat.
TODAY, we utilize sustainable practices and methods for growing wholesome product, we offer visitors the opportunity to both dirty their hands and discover clarity about their food sources.
TOMORROW, we will continue to improve methods for protecting our valuable resources while connecting visitors to sustainable farming practices. Our top priority is to expand Sotterley’s farm program to provide for those in need in our community. Ask us about how you can partner with us, contact us today!
Growing for Good – Growing Together
Most visitors agree, Sotterley is at once, rustic and refined, prim and primitive. Sotterley is older than Mount Vernon, Monticello, or Montpelier, where the shadows of their residents hangs over each of those places like a beautiful embroidered cloak. Sotterley’s history and its endowment is somehow more human-scale. Operating without an endowment, our top priority is funding vital infrastructure needs and amenities. Ask us how you can help fund Sotterley’s critical infrastructure needs, contact us today!
Your support opens a world of doors for Historic Sotterley. Through your generosity Sotterley will be able to continue and grow our outreach in our local, national, and international community. The support you offer will be crucial in ensuring Sotterley can consistently provide exceptional educational programming, top-of-the-line restoration projects, increased community outreach, betterment of our sustainable growing practices, and improved infrastructure across our site.
Make a one-time gift or pledge a gift over time, your support matters, Sotterley needs you.