MONDAY MORNING MUSEUM UPDATE – July 28, 2025 – Lindsborg Old Mill & Swedish Heritage Museum

In this week’s update: Sunflower Summer – FINAL WEEK, Genealogy workshops, Magic at the Mill, and more!

In this update, keep up to date on what staff and volunteers at the Lindsborg Old Mill & Swedish Heritage Museum are working on to lift up the history of Lindsborg and the surrounding region. This weekly update both looks back at what happened and looks ahead at what’s coming.

For July 21-27, 2025:

We are in the FINAL WEEK of Sunflower Summer 2025!
This state program and app makes more than 230 (!) Kansas attractions and events – including the museum! – available for FREE to Kansas school-age kids and one accompanying adult, July 12-August 3.
We are closed on Sundays, so the last day to use Sunflower Summer at the museum is THIS Saturday, August 2.
So far, we have had 240 individuals use the Sunflower Summer app! That’s great, but also notably down compared to the more than 550 last year (probably resulting of the shorter time period for the program this year). Regardless, it would really help the museum’s bottom line to have as close to similar numbers as possible. If you haven’t seen us lately, please make your plans to come see us this week!

The full list of attractions is now available at www.sunflowersummer.org. Also in Lindsborg, we have participating: Broadway RFD, Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery, Small World Gallery and the Red Barn Studio Museum!
An important note: This year, there is a hard limit on what is being spent on the program statewide. If the program runs out of funding before August 3, it will close before August 3. This means it is important to make your plans for using the Sunflower Summer app and attend them as soon as you are able!

We encourage everyone with school age kids in Kansas to take advantage of this wonderful program!
The upcoming workshops from Pursuing YOUR Past – “DNA: There’s No EASY Button…Yet!” – on September 13 and the next daylong Online Swedish Genealogy Workshop on November 8 are now open and available for registrations!
Prepurchase is also currently available for the second annual “Magic at the Mill” card tournament held at the museum on Saturday, September 20, in collaboration with local gaming store Spelbok. It will be a prerelease “Spider-Man” set themed prerelease tournament for $54.99 or Open Casual Commander for $10. Both registrations come with a guided tour of the 1898 Smoky Valley Roller Mills!
With stability repairs on the 1904 World’s Fair Swedish Pavilion now complete, we are now in the “Raise the Roof” portion of the Pavilion repairs fundraising campaign.
Tax credits are still available for the 2025 tax year for donations under this campaign. Proceeds go to help with a new planned Pavilion roof that will be more durable and with a more historically accurate look! There will also be opportunities to have a “roof tile” with custom wording added to a permanent honor wall to recognize contributions to replace the roof; details will be coming soon.
The total contributed to the new roof is now more than $35,000. There is still capacity for more than $52,000 in donations possible under the grant, with eligible donations qualifying for a 70% fully refundable tax credit on Kansas taxes.
(Adam also worked last week on a mailing to complete fundraising available under this tax credits grant. He also updated the head of the program at the state on the current state of the grant.)
Learn more at www.oldmillmuseum.org/raise-the-roof.
The campgrounds are currently closed to new campers because of flooding. We are evaluating this week when we will reopen, and will post updated information on Facebook and Instagram.
A cleaning crew will be “deep cleaning” the inside of the Swedish Pavilion this week in preparation for it to reopen to the public.
Big thanks to the the Museum Handy Crew, who focused this week on cleaning up tree limbs from recent storm damage.
A large donation of Lindsborg-related artifacts was made to the museum last week, which Lenora has started to process.
Lenora submitted final SPRINT Grant quarterly report, noting that all of the $250,000 under the grant have now been spent.
Adam processed an online gift shop order.
Adam worked on the final report for the 2024-2025 Arts Commission General Operating Support grant.
Tyler continued working on the Historic Image Database on Tuesday and Thursday.
Lenora has continued working on an indexing project under contract with ArkivDigital.
Need a great gift for the genealogist or history enthusiast in your life? NEW in the museum gift shop, you can now purchase a gift certificate good for a free registration to one of the museum’s Online Swedish Genealogy Workshops anytime in 2025 ($50) or a 2025 Pursuing YOUR Past presentation ($10). Your gift recipient will receive a one-time-use code by email or mail good to pay for the registration fee for one of these popular sessions!