Hi, neighbors! It’s us, Pearl S. Buck International, longtime resident of the Hilltown/Perkasie/Dublin area.
We wouldn’t blame you for not knowing who we are – located down a long winding, tree-lined drive. It’s easy to drive past our sign and think nothing of it. But we’d like to take this opportunity to introduce – or reintroduce – ourselves.
Founded by Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, humanitarian, and activist Pearl S. Buck, author of “The Good Earth,” we have long been in the community and supported by the community, beginning with the creation of Welcome House, the first adoption agency geared specifically toward placing hard-to-place interracial children in the 1950s. Welcome House saw its success because Pearl called on her neighbors for help – and they responded readily. Evolving from helping to create loving, multiracial families at home through Welcome House, we began to support interracial, minority, marginalized and impoverished families where they live in Asia.
Pearl S. Buck International is headquartered on the grounds of Pearl Buck’s Hilltown home, where she raised her own interracial and adopted family, and her historic stone farmhouse is now a museum and National Historic Landmark.
In addition to operating and preserving the museum and running our international child sponsorship programs, we offer educational and intercultural programming. We know many of you know us through being Welcome House families or from growing up playing basketball and other games in Pearl’s barn, going to school with her children or grandchildren, or reading “The Good Earth” in school.
But we know many of you, particularly Gen Y, Millennials, and Gen Z-ers, are unfamiliar with the fact that we are right in your own backyard – but we’re working on changing that. We are getting back into the community and inviting the community back to visit us.
We have a beautiful new state-of-the-art event space we use for our own events and which is available to rent. We are going out to community and local events, such as Perkasie Community Day, the annual veterans’ benefit at the Hilltown German Hungarian Sports Club, and Bucks County YMCA’s Welcoming Week – so if you see us out and about, come over and say hello.
Our holiday events are back in full force, and we’re hoping our inaugural Octoberfest celebration on October 23, which will feature vendors, kids’ games, entertainment, food trucks and drink vendors, will be a chance for local families and friends to come to our grounds, have fun, meet each other, meet us and learn what we do.
We invite you to visit and take a tour of the Pearl S. Buck House to learn about Pearl’s humanitarian, literary, and cross-cultural legacy. Or just come and hang out for a bit – it is free to visit our grounds and we hope you do. We have 67 beautiful acres to explore, you can visit Pearl Buck’s grave on site, and our exhibit gallery, which has Pearl’s many awards on display, including her Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes.
Our gift shop, operated by our many wonderful and dedicated volunteers, has artisan goods, jewelry, apparel, children’s items, and Pearl Buck souvenirs. We may be an international organization, but we are proud to be a part of the local Upper Bucks County community. This is our home and we love it.
We hope to see you more when we’re out in the community and we hope you stop by to see us, too.
Submitted by Mary Hall, PSBI communications manager. Find us at pearlsbuck.org.
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