St. Ignatius receives preservation grant

COLFAX – St. Ignatius Hospital in Colfax was one of the 2023 Valerie Sivinski Fund Grants Awards winners of $2000 through the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation in mid-November.

St. Ignatius' owner, Austin Storm, is extremely grateful for the grant which helped them to continue the roof repairs.

"We were really pushing to get that roof done," Storm said, noting that this is the first winter that there's been a whole roof on the building since 2009.

Storm explained that they'd been working on the roof since they bought the building a year and a half ago.

"One of the big challenges was doing quite a bit of structural work underneath the roof," he said.

Storm was excited to get Aaron Garcia of Tone Construction LLC to do the work.

"We were really excited to find someone in Colfax," Storm noted, adding that there was some intense work that went into the structure.

"He did some incredible work on that," he said.

According to a press release from the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation Recipients of the 2023 Valerie Sivinski Fund grant awards were publicly announced on Dec. 13, 2022 at the Washington Trust's annual Sivinski Holiday Benefit, held at the Stimson-Green Mansion, their landmark headquarters.All proceeds of the benefit go towards supporting the grant program.

The nonprofit was named in honor of Valerie Sivinski, a former board member of the Washington Trust who served as president in the early 1990s, the fund was established in 1997 with the first grants being awarded in 1998 awarding more than $200,000 in cash grants and building assessment services to 186 projects across the state to local organizations and historic preservation advocates.

11 organizations were awarded money in the range of $1,000 to $2,000 with a total of $20,000.

St. Ignatius Hospital was built in 1893, serving as Whitman County's hospital until 1968.

Storm is excited to get this grant, and do the roof work.

"It's the biggest step towards making sure the building doesn't fall down and will be around for generations to come," he said, noting that now they are starting to think about other ways to repair the building.

"It's a huge milestone for sure," Storm said.