King Manor has been a museum for 126 years now! However, we don’t have an endowment. That means every year we start over, raising the money we need to keep programs free, pay educators and artists, and care for historic objects. We were contemplating this and made some discoveries..

🎈The King Manor house weighs about 1.4 million pounds

🎈A standard helium party balloon can lift 0.03 pounds.

🎈It would take 46 million balloons to lift King Manor

The bad news is… that’s a lot of balloons.
The good news is… we’re not going anywhere.

In 2027, King Manor will close for a while so we can do some important work: historic restoration and accessibility improvements that will help the house last another few hundred years. While the building gets a glow-up, we want to keep bringing inclusive history, arts, and cultural programming to our neighbors, even while the doors are closed.

And that brings us back to balloons.

So here’s our idea: Help us “lift” King Manor by buying a paper balloon, starting at just $5.

It costs a little more than a party balloon, but it does a lot more: Your balloon helps us build an endowment, a steady source of support that keeps King Manor going during the closure, after we reopen, and far into the future. No helium required.

By purchasing a balloon, you are lifting King Manor so we can build a new foundation - one that will last for generations to come. 🎈

Endowment Campaign

Lift Up King Manor with Grassroots Endowment