Retired National Park Service historian and Harpers Ferry Parks Association tour guide Dennis Frye, right, chats with West Virginia Humanities Council Executive Director Eric Waggoner in Alma Bea on July 11. Tabitha Johnston

SHEPHERDSTOWN — The West Virginia Humanities Council (WVHC) celebrated its 50th anniversary at Alma Bea restaurant in Shepherdstown on July 11.

While the 501©3 nonprofit organization’s headquarters are in Charleston, WVHC Executive Director Eric Waggoner said the organization decided to hold its anniversary celebration in the Eastern Panhandle, due to the many ways the WVHC has invested in local humanities efforts. Without WVHC funding, the Contemporary American Theater Festival would not be able to offer any free programming and no History Alive! actors would be traveling the state, sharing little known stories from the past with modern audiences.

“Our mission is, really, very simple. It’s to promote vigorous programming in the humanities all around the state — history, literature, philosophy, religious studies, legal studies — all of the things that fall under the big umbrella of the humanities. We want to do more to support, through grantmaking, a lot of the organizations around West Virginia,” Waggoner said. “There are so many organizations doing such great work in their own communities — leaning into cultural tourism and being mindful of the cultural economy and of what they contribute to the quality of life across the state. We feel we do our best work through supporting those organizations.

“We think we’ve done a great job of doing that over the last 50 years, but over the next 50 years we really want to ramp it up a notch,” Waggoner said. “We want to provide a lot more support.”

According to Waggoner, the West Virginia Humanities Council is the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). On top of providing grant funding and educational programming, the WVHC is the creator and curator of the West Virginia Encyclopedia — an online, comprehensive reference resource for the state.

Attendees from the Eastern Panhandle and across the state socialize together at the beginning of the West Virginia Humanities Council’s anniversary celebration in Alma Bea on July 11. Tabitha Johnston

“About half of our funding comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities each year. We do get some support from the state, although we’re not a state agency. Outside of that, the rest of our support is made up by donors from all around West Virginia,” Waggoner said. “We have a really wonderful network of supporters throughout the state.”

For the WVHC, no donation is considered too small.

“Last year, if you gave $1 to the West Virginia Humanities Council, we multiplied that five times. We are able to draw funds from federal sources and from other donors and from outside grants, so every dollar that anybody gave to the West Virginia Humanities Council really $5. A little money goes a long way. Every gift is meaningful and every donation makes a difference in what we do,” Waggoner said. “We’re very mindful of the faith that West Virginians place in us, to put programming in their homes and communities.”

Although the WVHC has a staff of eight, Waggoner said they are able to function on about 25 percent of their annual revenue.

“We have a very low overhead and very low administrative costs,” Waggoner said. “Our goal, which we usually meet, is for around 75 percent of our revenue to go right back out the door. Last year, we put a little over $1.1 million into West Virginia’s cultural economy, through grants and programs. This year, we’re on track to do a little bit more — about $1.3 million.”

For more information on the WVHC, visit https://wvhumanities.org/.