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End of Year Appeal
November/December 2020
Dear new and longtime members and friends, and supporters of historic preservation,
With your help and our shared dedication and passion for our historic and cultural places, SOHO has continued to lead and succeed in historic preservation during these extraordinarily unusual and perilous times.
 Executive Director Bruce Coons preparing the Adobe Chapel for the 250th San Diego anniversary 2019 exhibit. Photo by Alana Coons |
You know that crucial advocacy does not stop during a pandemic, and that you can depend on SOHO's vigilance in monitoring and protecting San Diego's collective architectural, cultural, and landscape heritage. Even with a temporarily reduced staff, our full-time efforts continue every day.
Thanks to dedicated supporters like you, we can keep our focus on advocacy. With your donation, with your help, SOHO can stretch to meet regional preservation needs. With your partnership and support, SOHO can more than survive—and even thrive—during some of the most challenging times in our 50-year history.
We are resilient, and we are pushing ahead, but we do need your help.
You have told us what matters most to you is that we stay focused on our mission. And we do just that. SOHO remains alert on every front—advocacy, education, outreach, and stewardship of historic house museums and sites.
The services SOHO provides continue to be vital to the fabric, economy, and characteristics of our San Diego communities. Studies show that the preservation of historic places promotes individual well-being and a sense of community.
Five of the popular historic sites that we manage have been closed to the public since March, including the Marston House and Whaley House museums. Maintenance work and costs are, of course, ongoing. Closing these major attractions has created a huge financial blow.
The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) has warned that "one out of every three museums [in the U.S.] may shutter forever as funding sources and financial reserves run dry." We are doing everything we can to prevent that from happening. Your help is critical.
Always a community beacon of stimulating and important information, SOHO has honed its leadership in learning without walls. Since March, our education, programming, and communications team has creatively expanded our education and community engagement programs to extend our online reach to adults, students, and families.
Today's circumstances highlight the need for your support even more. Online programming needs means we need to invest in the technology required to bolster and bring you the advocacy and educational programs you care about. SOHO must be well-positioned to emerge stronger than ever from today's challenges. We hope you can help.
We turned our actual Marston House exhibit, which celebrates the Marston family legacy, into an online resource now available 24/7. We hosted the first-ever virtual People In Preservation Awards ceremony, digitized decades worth of early SOHO newsletters, and even provided original Whaley family recipes to try, among other innovative projects—all while learning new technology. Please help us keep growing with a generous year-end gift.
In the last year, our advocacy team has combatted dozens of threats to historic buildings and landscapes, and the ordinances and plans enacted to protect them.
Most recently, good news from Del Mar is that the Dunham House, threatened with demolition, will be saved. A new City of San Diego historic resource—an 1880s carriage house converted into apartments—is a big preservation win. SOHO also successfully lobbied the City for a CEQA report on the endangered Chase Bank building, adorned with important mosaics inside and out, near Mission Bay. And construction has not slowed down in San Diego. SOHO continues working with developers on several projects to ensure that historic resources included in a project are highlighted as a significant asset along with their program goals.
We know there are great needs in the world and that you are being asked for help from all directions. We only ask that you consider a gift of any size to SOHO.
Thank you for supporting SOHO to guarantee that our cultural heritage is better understood through its preservation and has more impact today and in the future. All of us here wish you and yours a healthy and meaningful holiday season.
Wishing you well and with gratitude,
Bruce Coons, Executive Director
P.S. All gifts big and small make a difference. Please take a moment now with our secure and easy online form and see how you can give today. Thank you for your generosity!
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