A student intern assists with the preservation and documentation of archival and museum objects. Such work has been made possible through a Trust grant.

The Andersonville Trust

The National Prisoner of War Museum opened on April 9, 1998. The construction of the 10,000 square foot museum is the result of a partnership between the American Ex-Prisoners of War and the Friends of the Andersonville. Over 10,000 individual donors and 25 corporations and foundations donated over $700,000 in cash contributions to construct the museum. Since the museum’s opening, the historic site’s visitation has grown to over 130,000 annually.

The Andersonville Trust, one of 50+ endowments, trusts and funds supporting the 390 units of the National Park Service, is administered by the Friends of Andersonville, a non-profit 501 (c)(3) organization of dedicated volunteers, so that the story of Andersonville and the prisoner of war story may be told to all.

The Friends of Andersonville provides volunteers and supporters an avenue to contribute to the continuing interpretation of the American prisoner of war story and the important role that the historic site plays in the telling of this story. The Friends support every aspect of acquisition of artifacts and research materials, maintenance and improvement projects, interpretive programming, and overseeing The Andersonville Trust which will provide for the National Historic Site and the National Prisoner of War Museum.

The Trust is administered by a Board of seven Trustees that meet annually to make grants from the income of the fund to initiate park projects.

Fund raising for the Trust began with a very generous grant from the Lettie Pate Evans Foundation of $150,000 and the endowment has recently exceeded its long-held goal of $1 million in the corpus.

Since its founding in 1996, the Andersonville Trust has made over $269,000 in donations to the park and museum. Among those was a grant to purchase 20-acres of land that allowed for a safe entrance to the site. The Trust also made a major grant to the park to allow for the production of a new orientation film that is shown at the National Prisoner of War Museum. Other grants have been made for resource protection, research and maintenance of the Museum and park.

The Andersonville Trust provides supporters the opportunity to aid in the preservation of an important aspect of our national heritage. Tax deductible gifts can be sent to:

Andersonville Trust
PO Box 186
Andersonville, GA 31711