HARMONY — Historic Harmony has met a challenge by a Butler County foundation that will result in $10,000 in additional funding for the historical society.

John Ruch, president of Historic Harmony, said the organization’s members and friends contributed nearly $11,000 before May 30, a month before the challenge deadline.

That enabled Historic Harmony, which manages the Harmony Museum, to claim the $10,000 matching grant from a foundation that requested to remain anonymous.

The foundation’s challenge gave the society a good start toward raising the funds it requires this anniversary year for facility improvements and other projects, he added.

Ruch said an announcement of the campaign’s success was withheld pending receipt of the matching grant and Historic Harmony’s subsequent ability to contract for replacement of the roof on the Harmony Museum’s Stewart Hall

The hall is used by the organization for exhibits and functions as well as being a facility for private and community events.

Earlier this year, Historic Harmony launched a yearlong campaign to raise at least $50,000 to fund several projects.

“One way to look at this is that with the success of the challenge grant effort, we’re about 40 percent of the way to the total we want to raise during this 70th anniversary year,” Ruch said in a release.

Members of Historic Harmony, which receives no local, state or federal government operating funding, approved a record budget of $146,450 for 2013.

Key among projects in this year’s budget are replacing the roof of Stewart Hall, attached to the museum in the center of Harmony’s National Historic Landmark District, and repairs to the 1825 Harmony Mennonite meetinghouse, a museum site expected to be added to the National Register of Historic Places.

“We are grateful to everyone who demonstrated their appreciation for the importance of the Harmony Museum to the greater community as donors and volunteers,” Ruch said

“We still aim to raise at least another $30,000 by year-end to achieve the challenging objectives our members have set to support preservation of an historically important community’s heritage.”