Good morning Friends of the James River Park!

We are very excited to announce that Friends of Pump House, one of our fiscally sponsored organizations, has just been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Roller-Bottimore Foundation!

This grant will be used to complete the window and door replacement project that Friends of Pump House (FOPH) has been working on since 2021. Up until now, they have been working on one or two windows at a time. Their success hasn’t gone unnoticed and now they have the resources necessary to complete that project. The ultimate goal of this project is to improve the look and security of the building.

FOPH is a fiscally sponsored organization under the Friends of the James River Park umbrella. That means they are not their own 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Instead, we let them operate under our nonprofit status because their mission is so closely tied to ours. We provide oversight, administrative infrastructure, and the legal status that allows them to operate. All we ask for in exchange is that they keep up the good work. We also provide fiscal sponsorship for the RVA Environmental Film Festival and the JRPS Invasive Plant Task Force.

We worked closely with FOPH leadership to write and submit this grant back in the early Fall. We are proud to have been a part of making it possible. Finishing the window and door project is an important piece of what the Pump House needs, and we are hoping that this investment will draw more attention to the larger projects that need to be done there.

FOPH, FOJRP, Historic Richmond, and the City of Richmond (it is their building) have all been working on a larger plan to eventually reopen the ballroom for education programs and after-hours events. That project is probably going to cost somewhere north of five million dollars, which will probably come from a mix of government and private funding.

Cruise by the Pump House next time you are in that area and check out all of the great things FOPH are up to. You can check their website (https://www.friendsofpumphouse.org/) for more information about when they are having work days, and when they have the Pump House open for tours.

See you in the park!

-Josh