The Jewish Heritage Foundation of North Carolina (JHFNC) announced that it has reached $1 million in gifts and pledges to produce its "Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina" multimedia cultural project.

Many corporate, state and individual family gifts from throughout the state have been received and will be acknowledged by naming opportunities within the specific parts of the project.

Only $250,000 remains to be raised to reach "Down Home's" full budget, and naming opportunities are still available. These gifts are helping to save North Carolina's Jewish heritage.

"Down Home" will tell the over 400-year history of Jewish settlement in North Carolina in a multimedia project that will include a traveling museum exhibit, a broadcast quality documentary film, a richly illustrated book published by UNC Press and public school educational programming with a teacher's guide.

The written and oral histories, photographs and artifacts chronicling the story of immigrant Jews and their contributions to the communities in the state will travel in the museum exhibition to North Carolina's major history museums.

The film will debut this fall at the Museum of History in Raleigh and will be shown in venues throughout the state in 2009.

The Jewish Heritage Foundation of North Carolina, established in 1996, the state's sole Jewish historical organization, seeks to promote understanding of the Jewish people by educating both Jews and the general public about the history, culture, and religion of the Jewish people and by encouraging appreciation of the beauty of Jewish ritual and practice.

JHFNC collects and preserves artifacts and records the history of Jewish settlement in North Carolina, as well as conducting programs that examine and portray the Jewish experience in North Carolina.

The JHFNC also seeks to strengthen Jewish communal bonds among North Carolina's diverse Jewish and non-Jewish communities by maintaining networks that connect collections and educational resources across the state and by creating bridges between the older established communities and the many newly arriving residents.

For information on the project or organization, visit the Web Site www.jhfnc.org.