Hello All,

As us Bostonians continue to count the days till the first signs of spring, I have some exciting developments to share with USS Arizona Project Fund community.

Before jumping into the news, I wanted to address some of the feedback I have received over the past weeks. Our community has grown immensely over the course of the past few months and I and the board are delighted to welcome “aboard” all the new members. However, what I overlooked is that those of you who just joined us might not know much about the journey that led us to establishing the fund and its mission. I will direct all the newcomers to the bottom of this newsletter where I briefly share the links to learn more about us, our fund and more important the Arizona. One more piece of feedback I wanted to address relates to my most recent post about the trip down to Yale University to review Daniel Upton’s letters. I realized that I forgot to provide some context about who he was and the role he played in the history of our ship. I will also address those questions at the end of this newsletter. That is all the news on the feedback stand front, but please keep it coming as I appreciate all your thoughts. Now onto the big news…

First, I wanted to share a few highlights from our 1st fundraising event of 2015. A huge thanks to our Boston based community for navigating eight foot snow drifts and a collapsing public transit system to historical JJ Foley’s to spend a few hours with myself and board members Kevin Collins and Clay Westrope.

By all accounts the night was a success as we kicked off our efforts to spread the message about the fund and our 2015 plans. We were even able the correct a misassumption held by a few people that were planning on “discovering” the battleship USS Arizona that sank in Pearl Harbor. Thanks to the generosity of JJ Foley's, Celtics organization ( Patrick Lynch) and Channel 5 WCVB( Elizabeth Fiorile) we had some great prizes to raffle off to the attendees. Once we get a better count of the funds raised that night, I will be sure to share with all of you. For all those who were unable to join us, keep an eye out for our 2nd fundraiser which should kickoff in the next few weeks and won't be exclusive to the Boston community.

Second, I am very excited to announce that as of last week the USS Arizona Civil War Project Fund has been awarded 501 c(3) tax exempt status. This not only means all that your contributions are now tax deductible but it also allows us to apply for grants and other benefits. We are quite excited about this news and happy that the application process is behind us.

So those are the two large developments that we wanted to share. We will have another research update in the coming weeks when I get a chance to share the highlights of my search for Captain Upton’s wartime letters and their connection to one of the most famous US Presidents.

In closing, I want to share the information that I promised at the start of this note:

My Involvement with the Fund

Our Mission

History of the Fund

Who was Daniel P. Upton

How to help us

Thanks for reading!

-Colin