Mystic — Mystic Seaport Museum has announced it has received three grants totaling $519,999 from Connecticut Humanities, a nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The largest grant — of $500,000 — is a Connecticut Cultural Fund Operating Support Grant, which assists organizations in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and improves their ability to serve their communities. The museum said it will use the money in part to improve accessibility and wayfinding on the grounds, enhance online content and access for remote learning. The funds also will support the expansion and merging of the museum's educational offerings under the umbrella of its new Center for Experiential Education, or CEE, which is designed to serve youth by engaging them at critical junctures of their lives through experiential maritime education.

The second award is a $10,000 grant from the Sustaining Humanities through the American Rescue Plan Capacity Grants. The museum said it will use this funding to support diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion, or DEAI, training across all departments. The museum has hired the firm Lord Cultural Resources, which helps museums with DEAI principles, to help with the effort. 

The third award, of $9,999, is a Capacity Building Grant to fund Lord’s external information gathering and reporting in order to help the museum better understand and engage with a more diverse public.

“As we continue to recover from the economic impact of the pandemic, we are working hard towards positioning the museum as a more sustainable and culturally relevant institution to as broad an audience as possible,” said Peter Armstrong, president of the museum. “This generous support from Connecticut Humanities will help the museum, working in partnership with other community organizations, to emphasize the diversity of the maritime story to a much wider public.”