Tesla Fundraisers Continue Electric Course

With just under two weeks to go in one fundraiser and another complete, two efforts to preserve the memory and legacy of Nikola Tesla have blown their goals out of the water.

The much-publicized effort to purchase Wardenclyffe, Tesla's last lab in Shoreham, eclipsed $1.25 million recently with 13 days left to donate. Its original goal of $850,000 was raised days after it started.

Another fundraiser on kickstarter.com, aimed at creating a film that "tells a story about the importance of one man and his many technological gifts to the world, and how his name and legacy were removed from America's history," passed its goal of $35,000 last week.

Mid-last week, local officials voiced their support in securing a museum on the land, which would be purchased by the local non-profit Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe.

Jane Alcorn, the president of the organization, told Patch last month that the effort to purchase the land had surprised her alone: "The virality of it is continuing and it's outstanding. We’d been working a long time trying to make people more aware of Tesla, the lab and the importance of saving it. We’re really grateful to Matt Inman to bringing this to the public eye in the way that we were unable to do."

Have you contributed to either effort to preserve Tesla's legacy? Which one, and why?