Give Your Support

Supporting The Museum of Cornish Life, Helston

It costs us around £85 a day (not including staff costs) to keep the museum running. There are many ways to help the museum through volunteering, becoming a supporter, one off donations or leaving a gift in your will. Your generous support will allow us to continue to offer free entry to the Museum for everyone.

Registered charity South Kerrier Heritage Trust Charity Number 1151834

Since the South Kerrier Heritage Trust was formed in 2013 to look after the museum we have successfully raised over £400,000 through grants. These awards have helped us conserve the collection, improve collection care, digitise the photographic collection, create displays, run learning workshops and switch to energy efficient systems that save the museum money.

Through the generous support of visitor’s donations we annually collected on average a further £9000 a year to help us with running all aspects of caring for the museum and its collections. From April 2018 we were thrilled to have secured additional four years of funding from the Arts Council through a museum collaboration led by Cornwall Museums Partnership. This funding helps us loan objects, create displays, work with our communities and hire two new part-time members of staff including an apprentice.

From April 2019 to March 2020 we welcomed over 23,000 visitors to the museum. Over 2000 young people took part in formal education workshops and our memory boxes were used by over 1000 people in schools, colleges and residential homes. Since closure we have created 8 films about the museum, funded by the Space, that had over 150,000 views, delivered 16 Facebook Live ‘Digital Collection Tours’ and 16 ‘Museum Makes’ with over 40,000 views. We also delivered weekly dial-in visits for care homes following on from ‘Wish You Were Here’.

Our small team is supported by a dedicated group of over 80 volunteers who help with documentation, digitisation, education, cleaning, maintenance, research and welcoming our visitors. They have continued to support us during COVID-19.

Become a Supporter
Becoming a Museum Supporter is important to us as a charity. Your gift directly funds all aspects of the museum including collection care, displays, learning and our commitment to free entry for all.
The annual donation is £25

Volunteering
One of the most valuable gifts we can receive is your time and there is a range of ways to do so, from regular two hour slots to one offs like helping with events we always appreciate your time .

Volunteering opportunities:

•  Working in our museum shop

•  Helping with education programmes

•  Housekeeping & maintenance 

•  Gardening

•  Collections care