The Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center announced Friday it had received a $750,000 grant from the National Park Service to support preservation and restoration of the historic Willow Hill School in Portal.
"This $750,000 grant is a tremendous investment in preserving an important part of our shared history," said Dr. Alvin D. Jackson, president of the Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center, in an email release from Willow Hill. "Our ancestors emerged from slavery with very few resources, yet they understood that education was the key to a better future. They established schools, built communities, and created opportunities for generations that followed. Over time, Willow Hill evolved from a school established to educate African American children into an integrated institution that served students of all races. We have a responsibility to preserve that extraordinary legacy."
The award, Willow Hill’s largest ever, represents a milestone in the Center's ongoing efforts to preserve one of the area’s historic educational landmarks.
Roughly a decade after the abolition of slavery, formerly enslaved residents of the Willow Hill area near Portal established the school for their children. The core families included the Donaldsons, the Riggs, the Halls and the Parishes.
These “families, post-slavery, they became landowners and owned up to six thousand acres of land in the Willow Hill community,” Jackson said. “They founded the Willow Hill school in 1874 as one of the first schools in Bulloch County for African Americans, just a few years after the Civil War.”
Originally established to provide educational opportunities for African American children during the era of segregation, the school became an integrated institution in 1971, welcoming students of all races. Over its 125-year history, Willow Hill educated generations of students before closing in 1999.
Today, the Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center operates from the historic 1954 school building, preserving the history of education, culture and community life in Bulloch County and surrounding areas.
The National Park Service funding will help address preservation needs at the historic school building. According to the release, the Center's broader restoration priorities include preservation of the building's historic exterior, improvements to its infrastructure and restoration of important architectural features while maintaining the integrity of the original 1954 structure.
The Willow Hill School is especially significant because its history spans Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, the Civil Rights Movement, school integration, and the changing landscape of public education in Georgia. Its story reflects the determination and resilience of rural African American communities and the important role that public education has played in bringing people together.
Since acquiring the former school property in 2005, the Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center has added a museum, cultural center, and community resource to the campus. Its programs include historical exhibitions, genealogy research, oral history preservation, cemetery documentation, educational activities and community events.
The National Park Service award follows another federal investment in the Center's preservation work. In 2026, the Willow Hill received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to support the digitization and preservation of hundreds of historic African American oral history recordings.
"These grants demonstrate the importance of preserving the history of rural communities whose contributions have too often been overlooked," Jackson said. "The Willow Hill story is not simply local history. It is American history, and it deserves to be preserved and shared with future generations."
The Center anticipates that the restoration project will strengthen its ability to serve visitors, students, researchers and families seeking to understand the history of education and community life in Southeast Georgia, Jackson said.