OUR MISSION

The mission of The Hannibal Square Heritage Center is to pay tribute to the past, present and future contributions of Winter Park's African-American community. Through its innovative programming in the arts and humanities, the Heritage Center is a neighborhood focal point, archive, and home to the expanding exhibition, The Heritage Collection: Photographs and Oral Histories of West Winter Park. Through exhibitions and diverse educational programs it will inspire all Central Floridians and visitors to Winter Park to become more aware of, respect, explore and participate in their own community's history and heritage.

ESTABLISHMENT & FOUNDING

Since its inception in 1975, Crealdé School of Art, a community based, non-profit art school in Winter Park, has been led by a mission to provide extensive outreach and foster cultural diversity, understanding of pluralism, and preservation of our cultural heritage.
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At the time the center was born, the school had a decade-long presence at the Winter Park Community Center, serving the city's historic African-American community through free art classes for children and seniors.

In 2001, during an impromptu meeting in his Winter Park Community Center office, Community Center Director Ron Moore and Crealdé Executive Director and documentary photographer Peter Schreyer had the conversation that led to the establishment of The Heritage Collection. Peter shared an inspirational presentation that he had witnessed at a photographic conference. A representative from the Los Angeles County Library had shared their community research involving the collecting of family photographs and oral histories, to which Ron replied with the words that will go down in history, "Our community's history is stored in shoe boxes under our beds." This comment and the conversation inspired Crealdé staff to write a successful grant application to the Community Foundation of Central Florida.

In March of 2002, the first of many Heritage Days was held. Over two dozen residents showed up with their treasured family photographs and histories. The resulting exhibition, The Heritage Collection: Photographs and Oral Histories of West Winter Park, was displayed and temporarily housed at the Winter Park Community Center until it was expanded by additional Heritage Days and outgrew its space. Out of the popularity of the exhibition, a community movement was born by which local residents rallied to establish a permanent home to celebrate and honor historic Hannibal Square, also known as the west side of Winter Park.

After four years of persistence, research, dialogue and planning with community and civic leaders to find a suitable building for the collection in the historic Hannibal Square neighborhood, the City of Winter Park and Crealdé School of Art opened the new Hannibal Square Heritage Center on April 28, 2007. The center was built and is sustained, in part, through funding from the city's Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). It is primarily operated and staffed by Crealdé  though a portion of the center is home to the Family History Research Library, a service of the Unity Heritage Festival Foundation and the City of Winter Park.

The center has allowed Crealdé School of Art to expand its services to the west Winter Park community and to strengthen the organization's mission to use the arts as a vehicle to connect and celebrate individuals, neighborhoods, and cultural diversity. It is the organization's hope that the Hannibal Square Heritage Center will be a model for recording and celebrating the culture, history and heritage of threatened communities everywhere.

Hannibal Square Heritage Center Ribbon Cutting on April 28, 2007. From left to right: Peter Schreyer, Joe Terranova, Taylor Robinson, Mayor David Strong, Evelyn Perkins and Fairolyn Livingston.