We seek financial support to purchase and restore the house and herbarium complex of Liberty Hyde Bailey and to launch The Liberty Hyde Bailey Center in upstate New York, a new kind of public institution established in close partnership with Cornell University, which will do the following:

• Address the interlinked crises of climate change and democratic unravelling together, strengthening and mobilizing democratic civic action on issues related to climate in rural America through a robust Rural-Urban Dialogue Initiative and public deployment of the arts and humanities.

• Leverage the public trust held by Cornell Cooperative Extension, as well as its geographical reach in every county of New York State, to bridge rural-urban, red-blue, and other polarizing divides through interdisciplinary programming that empowers and works alongside local communities.

• Develop a model and a growing set of resources to catalyze similar work across the national land-grant university system and networks of independent rural organizations.

• Ground these initiatives in Bailey’s rich and provocative body of work by making that work both accessible and relevant to the challenges and opportunities of our moment.

• Preserve and restore the historic gardens and buildings, featuring architecture designed by William Henry Miller, Clarence A. “Pa” Martin, and Bailey himself, and open them all as a public resource and education center in Ithaca.

Our sponsoring agency, accepting donations to the project, is Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County, an independent 501c3 nonprofit organization.