Waco Foundation invests nearly $6 million into the community each year in the form of grants, scholarships and nonprofit programming.  One recent grant recipient, the Dr Pepper Museum, was awarded  $25,000 for their Reinterpretation Project.

The new bottling room exhibit, tentatively titled, "The People of Dr Pepper," will be housed in the National Register-listed 1906 Artesian Manufacturing & Bottling Company (AMBC) building, now the Dr Pepper Museum. This exhibition has not always told the full stories of the diverse employees who worked at the plant. Led by an advisory committee of scholars and diverse community leaders, the Museum will make history accessible to everyone through the inclusion of the voices of those working inside the bottling plant. The exhibit will open with an interactive scholar-led presentation via a live recording of Dr Stephen Sloan’s Waco History Podcast.

In the past, the bottling room story has been told through the lens of company owners, not the workers who produced the products including many female, Hispanic and Black Wacoans. Scholars will play a critical role in this project by helping the Museum access and generate new historical resources and content including oral histories, artifacts, develop and produce impactful audiovisual content and will create meaningful connections and access to people throughout our community.

This exhibit is a component of the Museum’s comprehensive reinterpretation plan. The primary long- term benefit and goal of our exhibits, like The People of Dr. Pepper, is the creation of a more accessible and inclusive Museum and environment for our community and our visitors. We achieve this goal by telling everyone’s stories, sharing the full history and presenting a more interesting and impactful experience for visitors of all backgrounds.