ROCKHILL FURNACE, Pa. (WTAJ) – The EBT Foundation announced the receipt of a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The EBT Foundation was one of only 61 recipients nationally. The East Broad Top Railroad Archives and Special Collections said in a press release issued Sept. 18 that it believes its receipt of this grant underscores the project’s significance in education and preservation.

The grant will benefit the East Broad Top Railroad Archives and Special Collections Disaster Response Planning and Environmental Monitoring Project, a joint initiative of the EBT Foundation and Friends of the East Broad Top.

EBT has one of the most complete archival records, with over five thousand linear feet of records, maps, drawings and more.

The project will utilize the funds to write a disaster response plan and train first responders on how to best respond to disasters that affect the archives. The goal of this 18 month training will be to instruct those responding on how to properly handle and care for documents if disaster strikes. This training also aims to teach those at EBT as well as surrounding heritage sites how to recover and store documents following a disaster and EBT is hoping that by providing this training to neighboring heritage sites, it will make such preservations a team effort.

This training will be conducted by the Conservation Center for Art & Historical Artifacts.

The monies from the grant will also fund monitoring and preservation kits for the archive. These kits will allow EBT to track multiple environmental factors that affect the archives and use data-driven analysis to take action to ensure the documents are being stored in ideal conditions.

Although EBT has over one thousand documents available in a digital archive, it still has many unprocessed maps, drawings, ledgers and more – all of which add to the value of the national story of the railroads.

The EBT Foundation believes this effort will benefit local communities surrounding the railroad and contribute to broader cultural heritage disaster response program for the region.