Heritage Center

Jackson College Heritage Center

The Jackson College Heritage Center is a place of inspiration, dedication, and service.  Volunteer students donate their time to collect and share the inspirational stories of Jacksonians whose sacrifice and courage helped shape American history.

Over the past 12 years, Heritage Center students have contributed well over 20,000 service hours, working to save our unique stories. Participants in each Project learn the importance of contributing to something greater than themselves—something for the greater good.

Professor Diana Agy, the director of the JC Heritage Center, her students, and community members are answering a call given by William Maher in 2006. He wanted to inspire young people with the lost stories of men and women who made Jackson great.  Students are strictly volunteers.  They receive no grade.  Most give up their spring breaks and Christmas holidays, as well as their Sunday afternoons, to work on their project. Many carry a heavy class load and work multiple jobs. They are devoted, dedicated, and inspired.

Heritage Center students learn to dream big.  They learn about the pioneer spirit that fostered the curiosity and drive that many of their ancestors had when settling the wilds of Michigan.  That same go-to spirit helped a new generation of Jacksonsians  help build America’s industry; they also led the way in its aviation and space programs. Students discover themselves in these stories.  Their ancestors served alongside George Washington—their ancestors mapped American before Lewis and Clark-–their ancestors walked and talked with the likes of Andrew Carnegie and  Amelia Earhart—their ancestors were Tuskegee airmen, and their ancestors walked on the moon. 

Many of these stories are untold and most of these people are almost forgotten.

But the Jackson College Heritage Center is in the business of making the invisible—visible