museums for all - association of children's...

Hand to Hand Association of Children’s Museums

14 We All Play Access Initiative

S

A S S O C I A T I O N O F C H I L D R E N ’ S M U S E U M S

1 Museums

for All

3 Culture of Color

4 The Bright

Light of Community

Engagement

6 Art and Healing

Go Hand in Hand

8 Appalachian

Outreach:

Traveling Trunks to

After School Programs

12 Moving the Museum, Finding

New Audiences

ince their inception, chil-dren’s museums around the

cal challenges they face in simply visiting museums. As part of this commitment, museums must be-come knowledgeable about the unique dynamics and trends in their own communities, asking questions including: What are the forces that are pushing fami-lies into economic distress? Are they long-standing dynamics, or have current events played a role? How does the history of the mu-

seum affect these families’ perception of the institution and who belongs there?

In order for children’s museums to ef-fectively and respectfully serve low-income families, the first step is to acknowledge that these families are not merely people in need who could be served through chari-table programs; they represent a valuable audience sector for mission fulfillment. In fact, the examples that follow exemplify how affirmative commitments to serving low-income families are no longer viewed as draining resources, but as a means to grow stronger museums through increased de-velopment opportunities and strengthened

world have dedicated themselves to serving all children and fami-lies, regardless of income. In to-day’s turbulent global economic climate, it is even more pressing that we turn our attention to fulfilling the value statement de-fined by the Association of Chil-dren’s Museum’s (ACM) board in 2013—ensuring that every child and family has access to a high-quality children’s museum. The cases highlighted in the following pages go well beyond offering reduced admissions for low-income families and instead make a consistent and broad commitment to seek, include, and welcome all.

As many museums have learned, iden-tifying low-income families and providing them with information on museum offerings does little to change visitation habits. What is required, as in any audience development effort, is an explicit long-term commitment to understanding the needs and motivations of these families in addition to the logisti-

Museums for AllACM and IMLS join forces to ensure that every child and family has access to a high-quality children’s museum

experience

Laura Huerta MigusAssociation of Children’s Museums

When museums move beyond “free,”

the real benefits to all stakeholders

can be fully realized.

Volume 28 Number 2 Summer 2014Museums for All


ExEcutivE DirEctor Laura Huerta Migus

© 2014 Association of Children’s Museums. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission prohibited.

call for authors Hand to Hand is written by volunteer authors including: museum practitioners from all levels, educators, researchers and other professionals. Visit www.ChildrensMuseums.org and search “Editorial Guidelines” to learn how to prepare an article for print.call for sponsors Hand to Hand sponsorship opportunities begin at $1,500. Contact ACM for details.

EDitor & DEsignEr Mary Maher 908 East High StreetCharlottesville, Virginia 22902 Phone (434) 295-7603 Fax (434) 295-5045 email [email protected]

association of chilDrEn’s MusEuMs 2711 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 600 Arlington, VA 22202 email [email protected] www.ChildrensMuseums.org

Hand to Hand, a journal for children’s museum profes-sionals and others interested in children, families and informal learning, is published on a quarterly basis by the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM). Subscription Information: ACM Members: one free copy per issue; U.S. Subscribers: $30; International Subscribers: $50. Opinions expressed in this journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of ACM.

BOARD MEMBERS Leslie BusharaChildren’s Museum of Manhattan (NY)

Susan Garrard Mississippi Children’s Museum (Jackson, MS)

Joe Hastings Explora! (Albuquerque, NM)

Al Najjar Glazer Children’s Museum (Tampa, FL)

Janice O’Donnell Providence Children’s Museum (RI)

Jeri Robinson Boston Children’s Museum (MA)

Michael ShanklinKidspace Children’s Museum (Pasadena, CA)

Charles Trautmann Sciencenter (Ithaca, NY)

Mark Thorne National Children’s Museum (National Harbor, MD)

PRESIDENT Marilee Jennings Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose (CA)

VICE PRESIDENTS Jennifer Farrington Chicago Children’s Museum (IL)

Rhonda Kiest Stepping Stones Museum for Children (Norwalk, CT)

Mike Yankovich Children’s Museum of Denver (CO)

TREASURER Catherine Wilson Horne Discovery Place Charlotte (NC)

SECRETARY Tanya AndrewsChildren’s Museum of Tacoma (WA)

PAST PRESIDENT Jane WernerChildren’s Museum Pittsburgh (PA)

BoarD of DirEctors

relationships with other critical child- and family-serving agencies. And in the process, as many museums are discovering, the chil-dren and families who are introduced to the museum through various access initiatives become contributors to the museum experi-ence on many levels, enriching the institu-tion and further enhancing its capacity to serve the community. When museums move beyond “free,” the real benefits to all stake-holders can be fully realized.

Children’s museums’ long-standing fo-cus on audience is a powerful tool for in-novation in the ways in which all museums can best serve and engage low-income fami-lies. The Center for the Future of Museums’ 2008 report Museums & Society: 2034 notes that the distinguishing feature between regular and “core” museum goers is a “dis-tinct memory of a specific, seminal museum experience…between the ages of five and nine.” Children’s museums are often the first museum children visit and are well po-sitioned to be the best place to inspire mu-seum visitors of the future.

The U.S. Institute of Museum and Li-brary Services (IMLS) has recognized the potential of children’s museums to model best practices for serving and valuing all children and families and has worked with ACM to launch Museums for All. Museums for All is a cooperative initiative between ACM and IMLS to encourage families of all backgrounds to visit museums regularly by offering reduced admission fees to children and families presenting an Electronic Ben-efits Transfer (EBT) card.

In this issue, six ACM member museums tell the stories of programs and approaches already implemented to ensure that every child and family has access to a high qual-ity children’s museum. As you read, please consider your institution’s relationship with various low-income communities and how your museum can participate in the Muse-ums for All initiative. For more information about how to participate, please go to Mu-seums4All.org.

Laura Huerta Migus is the executive director of the Association of Children’s Museums.

Museums for All is a cooperative initia-tive between ACM and IMLS to offer a signature access program that encourages families of all backgrounds to visit muse-ums regularly and build lifelong museum habits. Any museum that adheres to the following guidelines can be a Museums for All museum.

• Offer individual admission fees rang-ing from free to $3.00 (USD) to individu-als and families presenting an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card. Museums for All admission rates must be offered for up to four individuals per EBT card. This admission rate must be available during all normal operating hours. • Clearly publicize participation in Museums for All by posting information about access on their websites and other collateral. • Use the approved Museums for All PR toolkit resources for branding of the program in all communications.

• Train sales and front line staff ap-propriately to ensure good customer service to individuals and families seeking to take advantage of the Museums for All program. • Regularly report the number of visitors who utilize Museums for All admission.

Museums for All is a way to broaden a museum’s visitor base, and reach out to underserved communities. A museum visit can inspire the development of new skills and interests, ignite creativity and enrich social connections. Museums for All will help expand access to museums and also raise public awareness about how museums in the U.S. are reaching their entire communities. By removing the financial barrier, Museums for All also removes the social and academic barrier children face when they are not exposed to high quality museum experiences. Reg-ister today to become a Museum for All!

To register, or for more information about Museums for All, please send an email to [email protected].


reensboro, North Caroli-na, (population 277,080)

Culture of ColorInviting Refugee and Immigrant

Populations to the Museum

Marian KingGreensboro Children’s Museum

The local Lincoln Finan-cial Foundation agreed to sponsor the program for the 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 school years. This gave staff time to cultivate new rela-tionships, locate commu-nity resources, and build trust with new community members. A partnership was formed with The University of North Carolina Greens-

boro (UNCG)-sponsored Center for New North Carolinians, which identified three local community housing centers in which large groups of refugee/immigrant families now lived. Museum staff met with the hous-ing center staff to discuss how to tailor the program so that it would be most beneficial to children and families.

It was agreed that a variety of museum experiences would be offered under the Cul-ture of Color umbrella. The first program, scheduled for weekday afterschool hours, included a mix of free museum exploration time along with structured program time led by museum educators. During the first year of the grant program, sixty children from the three housing communities visited the museum eight times during the school year for programs designed and delivered for their specific group. Housing center program staff would meet the children at the centers after school and transport them to the museum in fifteen-passenger vans, provided by UNCG. Each visit lasted ap-proximately an hour and a half. Students explored American food in the museum’s Edible Schoolyard garden and teaching kitchen and learned about American holiday traditions. Through free play and museum exploration, the students informally learned essential social behaviors that contributed to their assimilation to American culture and ultimately to success in school.

A second component of Culture of Col-or during its first year included fifteen less structured, all free-play visits to the museum also made by children and families from the same community housing centers. Visiting groups ranged from twelve to thirty chil-dren, ages one through fourteen, accompa-nied by chaperones and parents.

Pre-registration for either of these pro-

staff contacted leaders from several commu-nity organizations serving new immigrant populations to discuss possible collabora-tions. The result was the development of the program Culture of Color.

The two main goals of Culture of Color were: 1) to welcome New North Carolinian families to the museum and through their continued participation and engagement enrich the museum experience for all; and 2) to integrate new programs into existing ones to encourage museum visitors to learn about their new neighbors and friends.

On April 12, 2001, the Board of Gover-nors of the University of North Carolina es-tablished the UNCG Center for New North Carolinians to “provide research, training, and evaluation for the state of North Carolina in addressing immigrant issues; collaboration with government and social organizations to enhance responsiveness to immigrant needs; and community support to provide training and workshops.”

The Center for New North Carolinians is committed to advancing the capacity of immigrants and refugees and will continue to build bridges between immigrant populations and existing communities throughout the state by providing: • Community-based outreach and advocacy • Educational programming • Research and evaluation • Immigrant and refugee leadership develop

The Center for New North Carolinians

Ghas been a refugee resettle-ment area since the mid 1970s, and the community has been enriched by the many new people who have made it their home. Within the public school system, 117 different languages and dia-lects are spoken by children from 95 different countries. According to The Center for New North Carolinians, Guilford County, in which Greensboro is located, averages nearly 500 new refugees settling here each year. In re-sponse to dramatically changing regional demographics, the Greensboro Children’s Museum (GCM), which opened in 1999, decided to develop an outreach program specifically for these new community mem-bers.

In 2008, to begin the program, the muse-um hosted a World Refugee Day, which was popular and well-received by all museum visitors, including refugee families and com-munity leaders. (Refugees leave their home countries because of restrictions or dangers to their lives, such as war, and are eligible for certain benefits; immigrants leave their home countries to settle in others, and in the United States are eligible for very limited services.) As colorful native dress formed a rainbow around the museum, visitors were amazed to see the incredible new diversity of Greensboro. The variety of languages heard added a world beat element to the drums, dances, and live musical performances. Re-peated in 2009, event response from immi-grant and refugee community leaders was overwhelming.

At an evaluation meeting following both events, staff talked about one of GCM’s guiding principles, accessibility, and agreed that the immigrant and refugee families who are “New North Carolinians” may not always feel welcome or comfortable in the unfamiliar environment of a children’s mu-seum. Although the leaders of the organiza-tions with whom GCM partnered for World Refugee Day were enthusiastic and receptive to the museum’s invitations, staff was not sure how individual families would respond when it came time to make decisions about visiting the museum on their own. Museum continues on page 12

3Hand to Hand Association of Children’s Museums


Who Belongs to the Museum? (And Who Does the Museum Belong To?)

munity partners. Explora’s community en-gagement initiative is based on an expansive interpretation of the concept of membership in its fullest sense of belonging and feeling at home. The goal for the diverse groups of people who make up the community is to be members of Explora—to belong—and for Explora to be an integral member of its community and an important thread in the Albuquerque fabric, which would unravel if removed.

If You Invite Them, Will They Come?

(Not Necessarily)

As part of Explora’s membership efforts, the Helping Hand Program, begun almost ten years ago, originally focused on dis-

seminating no-cost membership cards along with the schools’ free-lunch paperwork. This long-standing membership program, central to the organization, has evolved over time. During the early stages, staff struggled to process the many individual requests for cards, and utilization rates were low. Seri-ous reflection revealed that the program at-tempted to work for the community, instead of with it. After taking a hard look at the program model last year, staff re-envisioned

the initiative. Now known as the Community Partner Mem-bership Program, it makes Ex-plora accessible to the city’s most disenfranchised popula-tions by working through over seventy partner organizations. This switches program owner-ship to the partners, who play an active role in securing mem-bership cards for their clients, encouraging families to visit Explora, and finding needed transportation. Utilization rates have increased dramatically, es-pecially so when partners have integrated Explora into their existing programs.

One such partner is Nurse-Family Partnership of New Mexico (NFP). NFP operates

out of the University of New Mexico’s Cen-ter for Development and Disability. NFP’s mission is to empower first-time mothers living in poverty to successfully change their lives and the lives of their children through home visits by registered nurses and partici-pation in monthly moms’ meetings, from pregnancy through baby’s first year. Most moms in the NFP program haven’t gradu-ated high school, don’t have jobs, are single, lack viable transportation, and face a vari-ety of other challenges. Following an initial Explora-initiated listening session with NFP nurses, their clients, and Explora staff, it be-came clear that the moms and their babies needed a home away from home. Staff from both Explora and NFP worked together to make Explora that resource.

NFP nurses hand-delivered Explora membership cards during initial home vis-its. The nurses also counseled the moms about ways to use Explora, like going to the museum to study for GED (General Edu-cational Development) exams while their

A s the sun shone brightly on the Sandia Mountains, 270 Native American fifth

graders from eight Pueblo schools made their way onto Explora’s East Deck. After a morning of investigating exhibits, the stu-dents were excited and loud as they gathered on the music-filled patio. Benny Shendo, New Mexico state senator from Jemez Pueb-lo, took over the PA system. The rhythm and cadence of his prayer, spoken in his Hemish language, lulled the hundreds of excited people gathered out-side. As quiet blanketed the deck, he thanked his ances-tors and the sun that warmed the children, all of whom were about to compete in the 20th annual Zia Solar Car Races. For the eighth year, Explora turned over the facility to its commu-nity partners for this event, run by PNM, New Mexico’s electric utility company, in partnership with the tribal schools. Explora’s leadership team welcomed the group, saying, “We’re happy to have you here. This is YOUR place, so make yourselves at home.”

After moving into a new facility ten years ago, Explora staff participated in a group exercise to write the organization’s core val-ues. One of the values staff agreed upon was community. Part of that value statement reads, “We value the diverse community in which we live and to which we strive to be-long…and to create an environment where all members of this community feel wel-come and included.” The evolution of Ex-plora’s membership program, along with the projects that have been co-developed with members as a result, has advanced the or-ganization’s mission and helped it work sys-temically to address shared aspirations and concerns.

At Explora, membership isn’t simply a transaction, although 3,000 families pay for their membership cards each year. In-stead, membership is described as a sense of belonging. In addition to paid members, another 11,000 families have received mem-bership cards this year at no cost because of their affiliation with one of Explora’s com-

Explora’s community engagement initiative

is based on an expansive interpretation of

the concept of membership in its fullest sense

of belonging and feeling at home.

The goal for the diverse groups of people

who make up the community is to be members

of Explora—to belong—and for Explora to be an

integral member of its community

and an important thread in the Albuquerque

fabric, which would unravel if removed.

Community partners run the Zia Solar Car Races each year at Explora. Explora leaders welcome the group saying,

“This is your place, so make yourselves at home!”

The Bright Light

of Community Engagement

Kristin Leigh, ¡Explora!

4


babies explore the exhibits such as Knee High Sci. During a group visit to Explora, a baby’s squeal reached an impressive pitch as a bubble popped right on his forehead. His young mother laughed and touched her nose to his soapy one. More bubbles floated through the air, colors swirling on their surface, while tiny hands grabbed at them. “¡Mira! ¡Burbujas!” (Look! Bubbles!) could be heard as the women, some young moms and some nurses, passed around the little ones. All were at Explora celebrating the babies’ first birthdays and the moms’ first year of parenting. Very few of these moms knew what Explora was a year ago, but now they are members. NFP home visits continue, but the monthly moms’ meetings now take place at Explora instead of a clinic housed in a portable trailer. Of the seventy current NFP families, all are now members of Explora (along with another seventy-six alumni), and they have visited a total of 100 times in the past year, on top of the monthly group meetings.

Tapping into the Power of the Public Schools (Your Allies)

Now in its seventh year, the partnership between Explora and Albuquerque Public Schools’ (APS) Title I program is an exam-ple of a powerful collaboration with a very large impact. During thirty Family Science Nights a year, serving over 15,000 people, Explora hands the keys to the museum to Title I schools. APS staff coordinate the eve-nings, principals and teachers recruit fami-lies, and Explora buses the families from the schools to the museum, where dinner is served by Explora’s teen interns. Families spend the evening exploring exhibits and enjoying programs facilitated by Explora’s Visitor Services Educators. 55 percent of APS students are Hispanic, and 14,000 are English language learners, so many of the interactions take place in Spanish, fa-cilitated by Explora’s bilingual staff, along with teachers and parents from the schools. The atmosphere is special—moms and dads jump in to help serve pizza and clear plates, and Explora staff become part of the family.

Many of these children first visited Ex-plora on school field trips. Family Science Night is a next step, allowing them to lead their parents and siblings to their favorite exhibits. Then, families receive their Com-munity Partner membership cards through their school, providing continued access to Explora. The progression is important as a way to communicate “this is what we’re

about, Explora is your place, please come back as often as you like.” (But there is no “right way” to visit Explora nor any required steps to participate in the membership pro-gram.)

Community-focused school principals have championed Explora memberships and actively supported Family Science Nights. The school leadership teams are critical collaborators, and the program is most ef-fective when educators use it to connect with families and engage family members in their students’ learning. At three of Ex-plora’s benchmark partner schools, 889 out

of 1,585 families registered for memberships and have visited Explora a total of 822 times within the past ten months, returning on their own time to explore, learn, and spend time together as a family.

Family Science Nights have been funded through a contract with APS. The district’s federal Title I funds, designated for parent engagement activities, subsidize the costs of the evenings. The amount of funding, along with the numbers of events and families served, has increased each year, and the pro-gram has proven to be highly sustainable.

Program evaluation is also a collabora-tive process. Pre- and post-surveys are ad-ministered to parents, students, and school

administrators. They measure how many times the respondent has visited Explora, how much they like science, how often they do science at home, and areas of interest for future science learning. Administrator sur-veys measure the extent to which the school offers science activities in classrooms and programs that promote family engagement in science, as well as community attitudes about science. APS’s Research Division is completing a review of surveys from Fam-ily Science Nights to evaluate the program’s impact on parent engagement and attitudes. The stories so far are powerful.

Sit at Someone Else’s Table (and Listen)

Explora was founded to be “welcoming and responsive to children and families from all of New Mexico’s varied cultures” with people, visitors, staff, board, supporters, and their learning experiences at the heart of its efforts. And, certainly, Explora’s unique blend of exhibits, programs, environments, and people has resonated with millions of people since it opened in its current loca-tion in 2003. After ten years—with stable visitation, established programs and prac-tices, and strong internal alignment around mission and values—it was time to take a step back and check in with the community to assess how Explora were living up to its “welcoming and responsiveness” promise.

Staff began a series of community lis-tening sessions, meeting with a variety of groups to ask about their aspirations, not only for themselves, but also for their neigh-bors and their communities, in whatever way they wanted to define the term. To em-bark on this series of listening sessions was risky. The outcomes were unknown and open-ended. Previous engagement efforts flowed in one direction—Explora designed programs and offered services to groups staff thought would benefit from them. By seek-ing input, would staff cede control or de-value their expertise? From the outside in, did talking about hopes, dreams, and messy community issues obligate staff to deliver solutions or do anything at all? The conver-sations took courage from both participants and facilitators, dealing with serious issues like poverty and race. At Explora’s listening session with NFP, for example, participants shared heart-wrenching stories of their chal-lenges, from waiting lists to take the GED, to vandalism of homes and cars, to the vi-cious cycle of not being able to get childcare without a job, but not being able to look

continues on page 13

Explora visitors feel equally comfortable working together on a science activity inside the museum as

they do relaxing outside on museum grounds.

Hand to Hand Association of Children’s Museums5


he rehabilitative powers of art have long been recognized. Art has helped count-

Girls ‘N Power began at the Girls’ Club Gallery. Founded in 2006 in Fort Lauder-dale by Francie Bishop Good, also an art-ist, and David Horvitz, the Girls’ Club Gallery is a private collection, open to the public, that features contemporary art by women. Working with co-program designer Michelle Weinberg, who was the gallery’s curator at that time, the girls met with art-ists, walked through the gallery, and viewed works of its Talking Heads exhibition. They each received a sketch book to record their thoughts through text and visual markings. The girls returned to PACE Center and Young At Art to complete the Alter/Altar

Ego self-portraiture project, which included the creation of alter ego/mirror images and production of a multimedia slide show.

Focusing on rituals, talismans, and iden-tity, the girls created altar-like sets to be used as backdrops and then changed their bodies and faces with make-up, paint, fab-ric, braids, beads, and more, adding other objects of personal ritual significance. They were photographed, making powerful state-ments about who they were and what they thought of themselves. Collaging and alter-ing transparent media, such as colored ac-etate, photo negatives, and candy wrappers, the girls then created slides of sequential concepts with text and a recorded sound track of random and composed rhythms and vocal scores, including recited poetry; spoken dialogue and passages from newspa-pers, novels, or textbooks; and sound effects from cell phones, radio, and street noise.

The poignant photographs they created became a traveling exhibition that was dis-played at Young At Art Museum. The video was shown at PACE Center and on moni-tors at Young At Art.

Said seventeen-year-old Laura, a 2009 Girls ‘N Power participant, “Like a mime, I don’t express my feelings by talking because I am afraid of being judged. When I start making art, I feel myself open up. I release my feelings through the art.”

Since the inaugural class, Girls ‘N Power has evolved to annually include some forty PACE Center students ages thirteen to eighteen who participate in the weekly pro-gram during the school year. In the winter/spring session, held from January through May, participants engage in the Alter/Al-

Tless people around the world tap their inner creativity to heal mind, body, and spirit.

Girls ‘N Power, an innovative art therapy program, is one of many outreach programs Young At Art Museum operates for the children and families in the South Florida community who are most in need. In 2007, Aggie Pappas, executive director of PACE Center for Girls Broward, a day program providing gender-responsive prevention/in-tervention to middle and high school girls at risk for delinquency, approached Mindy Shrago, Young At Art Museum executive di-rector/CEO, about developing an arts pro-gram for PACE’s Spirited Girls Life Skills curriculum.

The Young At Art education team devel-oped a program that would fit the needs of the girls, and in 2008, Girls ‘N Power was launched with approximately fifteen girls, ages nine to seventeen. The sixteen-week program is designed to build self-esteem in an environment that celebrates the female artist’s perspective. Girls ‘N Power uses art as a vehicle to explore the emotional terrain of self-image, while improving self-esteem and critical thinking skills for at-risk girls.

“This program was a natural fit for Young At Art,” said Shrago. “We use art to develop self-expression, but Girls ‘N Power also teaches participants to take a project from concept to design, learning teamwork as well as other important skills and values that they will carry with them throughout life.”

Led by Sue Aguilera, Young At Art in-stitute coordinator, the inaugural class of

Art and Healing go Hand-in-Hand: Girls ‘N Power Helps At-Risk Teens

Christine Feeley for Young At Art Museum

The Annual Teen Recycled Fashion Show, now

in its ninth year, has grown into one of the

community’s most popular events. Through

a new theme each year, the show challenges

teens to examine the world’s obstacles and

achievements in going green, including how

they have impacted earth’s

environment, what natural and other

disasters have changed the way natural

resources are protected worldwide, and how

recycling as a sustainable practice has had an

effect on daily life. Participants then

incorporate their findings into original

wearable art, made from recycled materials

such as metallic mesh, newspaper, cardboard,

egg cartons, canvas, remnant fabric, bottle

caps, recycled plastics, and splatter paint.

Kara Starzyk


Miami dress designer Sharon Ali sits with her daughter in front of a dress she designed entirely from recycled materials, including remnants and ordinary objects, for the Annual Teen Recycled

Fashion Show. Ali works with the program’s teen designers from concept to runway.

tar Ego self-portraiture project. In 2010, a new component was added to the program, participation in Young At Art’s Annual Teen Recycled Fashion Show, which has become the fall/winter session and takes place from September through the end of November.

The Annual Teen Recycled Fashion Show, now in its ninth year, has grown into one of the community’s most popular events. Through a new theme each year, the show challenges teens to examine the world’s obstacles and achievements in going green, including how they have impacted earth’s environment, what natural and other disasters have changed the way natural re-sources are protected worldwide, and how recycling as a sustainable practice has had an effect on daily life. Participants then incor-porate their findings into original wearable art, made from recycled materials such as metallic mesh, newspaper, cardboard, egg cartons, canvas, remnant fabric, bottle caps, recycled plastics, and splatter paint.

Teen designers from PACE Center now join the teens from Young At Art Museum’s American Express Teen Leadership Program to produce and participate in this one-of-a-kind, supercharged New York-style runway show. In preparation for the event, teens from diverse backgrounds and home live come together and spend hundreds of hours researching their designs, working with fash-ion designers, creating design mood boards, and learning to sew.

“Last year, one of our designers from PACE Center decided she also wanted to

model her dress,” said Aguilera. “When she saw the runway, the spotlights and all of the people in the audience, she wasn’t so sure she could walk out there. But, she did and it was a huge leap forward in self-confidence and experiencing something brand new.”

Proceeds from the Recycled Fashion Show help to support Girls ‘N Power and other Young At Art outreach programs, in-cluding ArtREACH, the museum’s nation-ally recognized afterschool art and academic enrichment program for homeless children residing in Broward County emergency and transitional shelters, in partnership with Broward District Schools.

Over the years, Girls ‘N Power has re-ceived strong financial support from local and national organizations. In-kind contri-butions for the Recycled Fashion Show have given the girls the opportunity to be part of a professionally staged runway event, com-plete with styled décor, hair, make-up, and nails and have enabled event-goers to enjoy the show’s refreshments and music and to participate in fashion art activity stations.

“Young At Art’s Annual Teen Recycled Fashion show is a creative, inspiring ap-proach to educating students and the Bro-ward County region about how to create a more sustainable future,” said corporate sponsor Wheelabrator’s Southern Regional Vice President Peter Kendrigan. “As a green energy leader, it’s a perfect partnership for our company. Our employees are looking forward once again to participating in this exciting event. We enjoy supporting Young At Art’s innovative approach of introducing the arts to our youth.”

As in most educational exchanges, the teachers learn as much as the students and

continues on page 16

LEARNING fROM THE AUDIENCE: the sky’s the limit

While the Young At Art (YAA) staff takes into account the challenges the girls at PACE face every day, they have found that the girls want to be heard and they embrace having a creative outlet for what they are going through.

YAA Institute Manager Marie Berlin explains that during a 2013 interview for BECON TV, the Broward County School System’s Education Communication Network, the PACE girls’ answers to scripted questions were both surprising and enlightening to Young At Art staff and program donors. The girls expressed that through Girls ‘N Power, especially during the Recycled fashion Show, they learned larger life lessons about cooperation, working in teams, the art of negotiation and, perhaps most of all, to compromise for the greater good.

Young At Art has taken these findings into consideration when creating curriculums for classes and other programs. This year, Young At Art is offering a new after-school fashion class for the first time.

“All of the girls who participate in the Recycled fashion show overcome the hurdles of creating a fashion piece and then presenting it in front of an audience of 250 to 300 strangers, while being judged for prize placement,” says Berlin. “for any teen this is high pressure. Now, imagine a teen in foster care, or is a teenaged mother, a victim of physical or mental abuse, or is dealing with substance abuse and add those pressures into the mix. It has shown us the resiliency of the human spirit and the capacity of these young women to go well beyond our expectations when given encouragement and a plat-form.”

The Girls ‘N Power program also has helped guide the YAA staff in developing similar art programs such as those at ArtHouse, opened earlier this year in partnership with the Housing Authority of the City of fort Lauderdale and Community foundation of Broward in a fort Lauderdale neighbor-hood, one of the most impoverished in the country. “Learning from our program with PACE, we are able to work with the teens at ArtHouse who are going through very similar issues and are able to help them grasp the same ‘the sky’s the limit’ openness,” Berlin added.

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rom its beginnings in the early 1970s the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge

open what became the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge in 1973. A subsequent grant, also from Reader’s Digest, helped to create its first exhibit about Appalachian culture.

In the 1980s, CMOR staff created Trav-eling Trunk programs, based on the muse-um’s exhibits, to take to elementary schools in nearby rural counties or to be checked out to teachers. This project was inspired, in part, by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant-funded program, the Ap-palachian Experience, that produced several

books, lectures, and audio/video documen-tation that captured the rich history of area folk life. The Traveling Trunks covered a va-riety of subjects, including art, history, and science, and utilized artifacts from the mu-seum’s large collection.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, sched-uling outreach programs in the schools was commonly done. Many surrounding counties contained isolated, low-income areas with few resources. Teachers as well as students were happy that CMOR could bring a little bit of the museum to share

with them. One of the trunks, entitled Children of Appalachia, encouraged children to explore their roots, learning to value their culture and traditions while helping them understand their place in the region’s history. The two-hour trunk presentations in-cluded exploration of the trunk’s artifacts and an art lesson based on the theme—an Appalachian theme might include a presenta-tion about locally made textiles, for example, and information about contemporary careers in craft production. Occasionally, local musicians would join in to work with the students. Traveling Trunk presenters were permanent museum staff or educators hired for the project. Since the muse-

um’s staff was small and its budget limited, this outreach effort was entirely dependent on grant funding for its ongoing operation.

After 2005 it became almost impossible to schedule outreach programs in schools due to the new standards-based require-ments placed on classroom teachers. In 2010, CMOR hired a full-time outreach educator who formed a partnership with local 4-H Clubs through the University of Tennessee’s Agriculture Extension Program, which had developed a longstanding agree-

F(CMOR) placed a strong focus on diver-sity and a deep commitment to the people and culture of the Appalachian region. This history was partly due to the influence of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which brings people from around the world to live and work in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for a limited length of time or permanently.

The story of the opening of CMOR in a region known for widely diverse cul-tures—from rural Appalachian farmers to world-renown nuclear physicists—begins with the birth of the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge in the forties. Created amidst surrounding rural Appala-chia, the closed and “secret city” of Oak Ridge engaged, at one point, over 75,000 people from around the world to work on this project that produced the first atomic bombs during World War II. During this time, the city was fenced, absent from any maps, and required identification to come and go through any of the seven guarded gates.

The city shifted to civilian control under the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (A.E.C.) in 1949. Six years later many “se-cret city” residents purchased their homes when A.E.C. sold the government houses, and then in 1959 the city was incorporated. In the 1960s, some Oak Ridgers became interested in the surrounding Appalachian culture and began to work with local indi-viduals to preserve the history and culture of the region. Several of these citizens were also involved with the beginnings of the Chil-dren’s Museum of Oak Ridge.

After earlier unsuccessful efforts, a group of Senior Girl Scouts wrote a grant to the Reader’s Digest Foundation for $500 to

Appalachian Outreach: Traveling Trunks to

After School Programs

Mary Ann DamosChildren’s Museum of Oak Ridge

Outreach programs at the Children’s Museum of

Oak Ridge draw children from rural Appalachian

communities along with those from families

drawn to the region to work at the

US Department of Energy’s national laboratory.

Top of page, a 1940s Oak Ridge housing development covers local hillsides; a Senior Girl Scouts’ project launches the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge in

1973 with a $500 grant; bottom, at today’s museum Oak Ridge children learn about gardening and healthy living through CMOR outreach programs.


ment with area rural schools to present programming. This partnership breathed new life into CMOR’s outreach program and matched the themes of the Traveling Trunks, now known as Discovery Cases, to classroom needs. Today, CMOR has added cases on healthy living to address issues of obesity and inactivity in children, as well as cases about the environment, gardening, sci-ence, history, and world cultures.

The museum has hosted free days for rural county families, but the response was minimal. For children in outlying commu-nities who may not be able to visit the mu-seum, it is hoped that their encounter with outreach programs will stay with them into adulthood and spark a love of learning and a desire to someday enjoy and reap the ben-efits of a museum experience.

In 2005, to further increase access for the region’s low-income populations, the museum partnered with four elementary schools to create an After School Program at the museum. That same year, CMOR formed an informal partnership with a lo-cal Head Start preschool hosting family nights, tours and some outreach. In 2006, Head Start joined the museum’s Celebra-tion of the Young Child event which focuses on healthy living. In 2013, at the request of the Head Start director, CMOR added a preschool component to the existing After School Program.

CMOR’s After School Program is charac-terized by a close working relationship with participating schools and parents. Teachers and counselors from participating elementa-ry schools recommend students whom they believe would benefit from the program. The After School Program now serves thirty children in third and fourth grades and ten from the Head Start preschool. After School Program teachers work with parents, mak-ing them an important part of the experi-

ence. Information is sent home to involve them in projects, and parents are invited to special parties and events throughout the year. For third and fourth grades, activities center primarily on life skills, careers, gar-den activities, healthy living, and the arts. For further enrichment, key people from the community are invited to visit and share their work or area of expertise with students. For example, a local bank president visited the program and set up bank accounts for the children who then learned about money management.

Initially, school buses brought children to the museum, but in 2012, the schools lost transportation funding for this program. Now CMOR relies on parents to transport their children to and from the museum. Museum staff have been very pleased to see that this has worked well. Parents are eager and grateful to have their children in the program.

United Way funding enables the mu-seum to hire three teachers for the program, two for third and fourth grades and one for preschool. Future plans call for expanding the program as additional funding becomes available and recruiting volunteers to work with the after school teachers.

Plans for 2015 include increased out-reach programs for rural counties in the areas of healthy living, gardening, and en-vironmental studies. By taking a little bit of the museum to surrounding rural schools through the museum’s Discovery Case pro-gram, CMOR is able to reach up to 1,000 children each year who might otherwise not have a museum experience. As new ex-hibit areas are created in the museum, cor-responding Discovery Cases are created for outreach purposes.

In addition to outreach programs and af-ter school programs, the museum offers free admission to children and families living in the surrounding low-income neighborhood. Scholarships are available for neighbor-hood children for classes, summer camps, and workshops. Future plans for CMOR neighbors include a community garden on museum property adjacent to the museum’s three-fourths-acre environmental center and gardens.

The Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge continues to respond to the needs of its unique community, building on its tradition of providing museum access to low-income families living down the street or in nearby but remote mountain communities.

Mary Ann Damos is executive director of the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

After years of informal collaborations with Oak Ridge’s Head Start program, in 2103, the museum’s After School Program added a preschool component to meet expanding

community need.

In a community built from widely disparate populations and in which a large portion of its low-income residents live in remote rural areas, CMOR has always looked for ways to bring the museum experience to the kids who are unlikely to visit on their own. for the museum, like many museum outreach programs today, transportation and funding are constant challenges. Through a combination of a Discovery Case outreach program and an After School Program, CMOR has responded to local needs and through strategic partnerships has maximized its ability to reach new audiences of children most in need of supplementary learning experiences. from a focus on traditional topics like science and art to new ones like growing your own food, healthy living, and other life skills, the museum is building stron-ger connections with today’s audience. And in ways which value and take advantage of the rich cultural history of Appalachia.

LEARNING fROM THE AUDIENCE: know the community, explore its history, respect its values



n 2016, Explore & More Children’s Mu-seum will move from the suburb of East

County Library System. EnCompass Out-reach has grown over the years, and now serves over 2,000 children annually at thirty different libraries. More recently, this pro-gram has expanded to community centers serving recent immigrants, refugees, and community block clubs on Buffalo’s East Side, a large city neighborhood hit hard by recent deindustrialization and disinvest-ment. The museum’s Free Admission Fund, started in 1998 for all families participating in the federal government’s Special Supple-mental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), has seen its numbers quadruple from under 500 admis-sions annually to over 2,000 in 2013.

With a lot already going on, in order to further community engagement efforts in preparation for the relocation and expan-sion, in the spring of 2013, Explore & More secured a three-year grant for an Ameri-Corps VISTA member. She was challenged to identify how to best serve new audiences to ensure that the museum continues to be accessible to every child and to explore new,

innovative ways to include all members of the community, not just those who have pre-viously been engaged. AmeriCorps VISTA’s mission is to create or expand programs that ultimately bring low-income individuals and communities out of poverty; one of its focus areas is education and advocating for educational equality. Providing access to the museum for all members of the community, despite financial barriers, will allow Explore & More to become a “third space,” separate from home or school/work, where children and families of varying backgrounds and ex-periences can learn together through play.

Beginning work in the summer of 2013, the VISTA worker’s first objective was to get to know the museum and its current programs as well its plans for the future, in-cluding the education plan and master plan. Through interviews with staff from other children’s museums, she compared Explore & More’s efforts with those of children’s museums nationally. Since the mission of VISTA is to expand the capacity of nonprof-its serving individuals in poverty, Explore & More’s VISTA staff member focused on developing and expanding programs rather than running current programs. VISTA grants are typically a maximum of three years in order to prevent an organization from becoming dependent on the position. If a VISTA member does her job effectively, her position will be obsolete by the end of grant, her work now sustained by the orga-nization.

During the first year of the VISTA grant, Explore & More hosted Partnership Sum-mits to which over 100 organizations and agencies in Buffalo and Western New York were invited to talk about the needs and as-sets of the community and how Explore & More could help to further human services agency efforts already in place.

The VISTA worker facilitated two pi-lot programs, developed from partnerships formed through the summits. The first, Exploring the World Around Us, launched in February 2014 in partnership with Head Start and the University of Buffalo and funded by a one-time pilot grant from the Lego Children’s Fund. Once a month for four months, this program provided expe-riential learning activities focused on birds

I

Moving the Museum, Finding New Audiences: VISTA Member Leads Change

Hannah Spalding, Explore & More Children’s Museum

Aurora, New York, to downtown Buffalo. Explore & More has always worked to make the museum accessible for all, however, this upcoming move will drastically increase the need for engagement initiatives to ensure the new museum is for and about all of Buffalo.

The museum’s Community Engagement Initiatives have grown in the past few years to include a free admission fund, free outreach programming in neighborhoods deemed “in need” by the local library system, partner-ships with other agencies serving audiences in need, pilot programs for children enrolled in Head Start, development of an agency membership, participation in its communi-ty’s Arts Access program, and participation in research projects to find ways to better meet the needs of under-served audiences.

In 1997, three years after opening, Ex-plore & More launched EnCompass Out-reach to bring museum programming to libraries in twenty low-income neighbor-hoods identified by the Buffalo and Erie

10

With a lot already going on, in order to further community engagement efforts in preparation for the relocation and expansion,

in the spring of 2013, Explore & More secured a three-year grant for an AmeriCorps VISTA member. She was challenged to identify how to

best serve new audiences to ensure that the museum continues to be accessible to every child and to explore new, innovative ways to

include all members of the community, not just those who have previously been engaged.


ship allowing nonprofit case workers to bring their clients to the museum free of charge. This membership will target new audiences and generate connections now on a small scale to determine ways in which Ex-plore & More can serve these audiences in the new, downtown location in two years. The museum now has the capacity to pro-vide memberships to six agencies. With no limit on the membership use, it is estimated that each agency will utilize the membership twice a month. In January, Explore & More will expand the program to twenty orga-nizations, but will charge an annual fee of $200, considered reasonable by the original six agencies and sustainable for the museum. The agencies involved serve refugee families, mothers and children in shelters, children with disabilities, and other families in need.

Explore & More also participates in the Arts Services Initiative’s Arts Access Pass program which provides free access to fami-lies who possess an EBT card. This program, organized and funded by the Arts Services Initiative of Western New York, partners with over forty arts and cultural organiza-tions in the region. Explore & More is also a registration site for the pass which allows individuals from rural areas who qualify for the program to register on-site without hav-ing to travel into the city. Explore & More plans to continue its participation after the move to Buffalo.

Since the VISTA grant will end in the summer of 2016, the final portion of the project will be to integrate all new initiatives into the fabric of the museum so that access for all is not limited to one program or staff member.

Hannah Spalding is partnership program co-ordinator through Americorps VISTA at Explore & More Children’s Museum in East Aurora, New York.

and hatching chicks to the students of Beth-el Head Start located twenty-five miles from Explore & More on the University of Buf-falo South Campus. The program wrapped up with a June field trip to the museum

for the students and their families. Head Start teachers were given books from each lesson with additional activities. Learning about birds was a fun and interactive way to highlight the infamous weather of West-ern New York. The goal of this pilot was to bring hands-on science activities to a Buf-falo Head Start, but more importantly, to engage a new group of children and families who would have otherwise not had an op-portunity to visit Explore & More due to a lack of public transportation to its cur-rent suburban site. A portion of the grant covered transportation for students, their families, and teachers from the school to the museum.

Exploring the World Around Us re-vealed a potential for volunteer and gradu-

ate student research opportunities, which would engage more of the community and increase program sustainability. Summit at-tendees discussed mining similar programs for research opportunities, which in turn,

could increase the quality of Explore & More’s ap-plications for funding for free programming and ac-cess for low-income fami-lies, especially in regards to school readiness and performance. Working with local universities to conduct research projects from existing programs has now become a priority. Within the last year, several researchers and college pro-fessors have identified ways in which Explore & More can conduct research proj-ects using the museum and its visitors. Developing re-search programs, especially to better serve low-income children and families, will enable Explore & More to qualify for a wider range of

funding. Explore & More successfully part-nered with Buffalo State College’s Center for Exceptional Education and Women and Children’s Hospital to create an ongoing re-search project about play and children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Explore & More serves as a “convener” and safe space for project families to play and learn while the specialists from Women and Children’s Hospital and Buffalo State conduct research and run the program. Funded entirely through corporate sponsorships, the results of this project were published in a medical journal last year.

In the fall of 2014, Explore & More will launch the second pilot program stemming from the Partnership Summits, an Agency Member-

Working with local universities to conduct research projects from

existing programs has now become a priority. Within the last

year, several researchers and college professors have identified

ways in which Explore & More can conduct research projects

using the museum and its visitors.

One of the biggest needs was a place for English language learners to learn through play without the stress of language barriers, and relatedly, making the museum acces-sible to refugee and immigrant families through reduced admission and translation. By starting these conversations almost three years prior to the move, Explore & More has been able to launch pilot programs and determine best practices for the new museum while giving nonprofits in Buffalo an opportunity to learn about the museum and com-ment on its future plans.

LEARNING fROM THE AUDIENCE: English language learners need a place to play



grams was not required—whoever showed up at the housing center meeting points got in the vans and went to the museum.

A third Culture of Color program held that first year included ten Saturday Cel-ebrations offered to all museum attendees. Each event was publicized in advance; event themes and content were based on com-munity and participants’ interests identified in earlier surveys and conversations among museum and Center staff. Immigrant and refugee audiences were asked about their indigenous cultural customs and holidays as well as their willingness to share information about traditional food and folk culture. Due to language issues, a number of them were hesitant to step forward, but people who have been residents for a longer period and were better acclimated to the local culture were more eager to contribute.

A spring break camp called Passport to Greensboro was the final piece of the year-long program. Campers—including kids from all backgrounds, not just refugee/im-migrant kids—who attended learned about Ghana, China, Germany, and El Salvador. Each day a volunteer native to the featured culture helped provide authentic experienc-es for the children. On the last day, campers explored and shared their own histories and heritages.

When Lincoln Financial Foundation agreed to sponsor the program for its second year, several program changes were made based on lessons learned during the first year. Center directors pointed out that trans-portation was difficult for many refugee/immigrant families. Children did not have transportation to the museum unless the housing community center leaders brought

them in one of the large vans. As a result, spring break camp was eliminated as well as any other Culture of Color opportunities aimed at individual family participation. Families had been given passes, but none were ever redeemed. It was decided that the museum needed to serve these communities as communities, and not individual families. Staff also recognized that they needed to be very flexible with schedules and to be able to adapt programming based on the size and age of the group which arrived at the cen-ter’s van-loading site. Children would often show up to go to the museum even though the program planned for that day was not targeted at their age/skill levels. Since the decision had been made to bring every child and adult caregiver who showed up at pick-up sites (until the vans were full) programs often had to be quickly adapted to meet the needs of the group who arrived.

Feedback from the center and the hous-ing community leaders was very positive. One of the center leaders reported

“Through this partnership, we have taken over forty trips to the museum and have provided enriching cultural activities for over 140 immigrant and refugee youth and their fami-lies. Many of our families arrived to Greensboro within the last year and half from countries such as Bhutan, Vietnam, Burma, Democratic Re-public of the Congo, Sudan, Eritrea, Central African Republic, Liberia, and Mexico. They come after facing years of persecution, discrimination, and violence. The youths’ transition to life in Greensboro is often a difficult one, including hardships in school, ad-ditional responsibilities in the home, emotional wounds left from previous trauma, and challenges in accultura-tion to their new life.

Through our partnership with the Greensboro Children’s Museum, our youth and their families have the opportunity to explore the wonders of the museum, an experience that would be almost impossible without financial support. The museum of-fers the youth a common language and shared experience that crosses cul-tural and linguistic lines. We go into the Edible Schoolyard and the youth recognize plants they eat at home, taste new foods, and learn about the value of eating locally and seasonally. The youth enjoy exploring other per-sonas by dressing up and performing on the stage. Most of all, the museum offers the youth a safe, fun, learning environment where they can just be kids and simply engage in the world around them.”

Funding for Culture of Color ended in 2013, but based on its success, the Lincoln Foundation funded a different but related program, Shades of Us, which included free exploration visits to the museum for children from the same three housing com-munities. For the 2014/2015 school year, GCM has invited the centers to continue their afterschool visits while museum staff continue to seek funding for expanded pro-gramming. Through its commitment to ac-cessibility, the museum’s relationship with these centers is firmly rooted, and visits will be encouraged even if future funding cannot be found.

Marian King is the chief executive officer of the Greensboro Children’s Museum.

Culture of Colorcontinued from page 3

12

New signage in Spanish and new role-play costumes reflecting traditional dress from other countries have been added to existing exhibits. In conversations with teachers from the Doris Henderson Newcomers School (part of the Guilford County Schools that serves immigrant and refugee children for their first year in the community) and The Center for New North Carolinians, museum staff have learned that the educators are most interested in helping children assimilate to American culture. Through the museum’s Our Town exhibits, children can learn about typical

businesses and services in an American town: the grocery store, book store, theater, medical center, house under construction, and post of-fice. Our Town also features authentic vehicles for children to explore including a fire truck, ambulance, police car, airplane, race car, and Volvo sleeper cab truck.

finally, the museum has invited community helpers such as firemen, policeman, and EMTs to participate in programs so that children can learn that these uniformed adults are there to help them.

LEARNING fROM THE AUDIENCE: the museum adapts for increased access


for a job without childcare. Staff heard how much these women dream of a safe, child-centered community, a place to provide for their children and give them educational opportunities—opportunities that they see available to other people but not to them-selves. All participants shared the experience of passing around the infants, taking turns cuddling them to their chests and watching their small fingers try to grasp the oranges being shared—always food, and lots of it, to break down barriers and create a shared ex-perience. The listening session with NFP led to meetings focused on the question, “what can we do together?” Soon after, NFP chose to become a Community Partner Member organization, and it was clear staff needed to make Explora a home away from home for the NFP moms, who were seeking—and lacking—safe, child-centered environments, where young children and parents learn to-gether. Continued engagement led to the programs described earlier in this article, and the relationship continues to grow and evolve.

The ongoing listening sessions, using a format and questions developed by the Har-wood Institute, have resulted in powerful collaborations, including the early child-hood/parent programming that Explora co-developed with partner Cuidando los Niños (CLNkids). In Albuquerque there are more than 4,000 homeless children under the age of six. Explora works closely with the twenty-five families at CLNkids, a day care center focused on providing homeless children with critical early childhood devel-opment services and providing their parents with educational resources to put them on the path to self-sufficiency. They have an as-

tounding 82 percent success rate for ending the cycle of homelessness for enrolled fami-lies. Most participate monthly in Growing a Scientist, an Explora program customized for CLNkids families and offered at their lo-cation. All twenty-five families are now Ex-plora members, and in the past six months have visited Explora twenty-two times. Ex-plora educators work with CLNkids’ staff to measure the impact of the programs, looking for behavior changes over time. For example, educators measure the number of times a parent engages with her child in a hands-on science activity at the beginning of a semester compared to how often that same parent engages after completing a se-mester of shared science activities. They see large changes in the number of interactions. They also use pre- and post-program surveys to measure change in parents’ confidence and attitudes about science. Ultimately, they hope to work systemically to lessen the achievement gap between children in poverty and their financially stable peers, a gap that can be seen in children as young as eighteen months.

Making an Impact (Commitment Leads the Way)

Explora is committed to supporting the Community Partner Membership Program through its general operating funds, almost a third of which come from the City of Al-buquerque. Development staff aggressively pursue funding opportunities with local cor-porations and foundations, who have been receptive. Recently, the New Mexico legis-lature voted to provide direct support in the 2014 state budget. The strategy of working through community partners has grown this initiative and has increased awareness among

new funders. Similarly, local government recognizes Explora’s strong commitment to the community and has funded accordingly. Deeper relationships going forward will in-crease both the number of stakeholders and the access to available resources.

As a hybrid children’s museum/science center, Explora is not a huge museum—less than 30,000 square feet of exhibit space with an operating budget of $3.25 million—but it strives to have a big impact in the com-munity. The museum’s community engage-ment initiative is central to its mission, aligned to its core values, and supported and implemented by staff across all teams, including senior leadership and the board. By listening to partners, working together, and sharing ownership of projects, Explora staff can implement ideas without requiring significant financial resources. Explora can be nimble and try experiments that address both community problems and community aspirations. Working very closely with com-munity partners, Explora is becoming an important gathering place for all kinds of audiences and a home in which many New Mexicans feel they belong.

Explora’s efforts were recognized recently when it received a Noyce Foundation Prize, the Bright Lights Community Engagement Award, in recognition of both Explora’s long-standing and new focus community engagement. Much in the way the sun pow-ered the fifth graders’ solar cars that day on their deck, Explora staff hope their effort will be a bright light that energizes the New Mexico community about STEM learning experiences.

Kristin Leigh is the deputy director of ¡Explora! in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Bright Lightcontinued from page 5

On a recent September afternoon, I chatted with Allie, and her daughter, Chloe. They are Explora members through their connection with the Albuquerque Housing Authority, which administers section 8 housing subsidies. Allie said they love their membership and are so appreciative because they couldn’t otherwise afford it. They like coming by after school to be able to relax and enjoy themselves, and not feel they need to see it all in one visit. They especially love the Chain Reaction program space and the Ball Run collection. Chloe pointed out some of the new exhibits she really likes.

After playing with Disappearing Objects before moving into Paradox Café puzzles area, Allie asked me if she can give a few dollars from time to time to help other families who can’t afford memberships. I let Allie know she can make a donation at the front Desk at any time, and thanked her heartily.

The CP Program really is impacting lives not only in what Explora can give to the community but in how families in turn feel empowered to give back.

— Tamara Grybko, director of visitor services

LEARNING fROM THE AUDIENCE: community partner members want to give back


7

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he We All Play Access Initiative provides avenues for Zimmer Children’s Museum

public agency are 1) DPSS already was a trusted recourse and maintained consistent communication with CalWORKs families, and 2) DPSS handles the production of joint promotional materials about the arts program in several languages and distributes them directly to families who qualify. Par-ticipation criteria are clearly established, and the onus of enrollment is not on the mu-seum. However, housed in a large social ser-vices agency ($3 billion annual budget), the

program gets lost among its many programs and services, many of which are much more critical for families. Over time, the dedicat-ed energy and personnel for promoting the program at DPSS has waned. At the Zim-mer, the program initially saw over 600 par-ticipants in 2007; totals dipped to 345, 142 and 213 in 2008, 2009, and 2010 respec-tively. These visitors represented 1-2 percent of total attendance during this period.

The Zimmer staff decided to make use of the EBT card procedure, and in 2011, launched the We All Play Access Initia-tive. Since the program began, general at-tendance has nearly tripled from almost 30,000 in 2010 to just over 80,000 in 2013, but participation in the EBT program has increased nearly twenty times. It is estimat-

ed that 4,000 individuals will participate through this program in 2014. In hindsight, the original Free Fun for Families EBT pro-gram provided much-needed access to low-income families, but growing this segment of the audience required the institution to review its priorities and focus on ways to manage that growth.

Beyond Free Days

Prior to 2011, the Zimmer had offered two to three free days a year that hosted about 1,000 individuals annually, but due to the way they were programmed and

promoted, their intent wasn’t re-ally access. The Zimmer, founded in the Jewish community, often featured programs around Jewish holidays—popular among Jewish visitors and those interested in cul-tural celebrations in general, but without the broad appeal needed to draw diverse audiences. Free days can also be fraught with com-plications, such as overcrowding and capacity issues, and generally are not either the most inviting introduction to an institution or representative of a typical experi-ence. Finally, free days were typi-cally on weekends, assumed to be most accessible, but in reality all parents work and family schedules vary. The Zimmer still offers free days, but the EBT program allows

low-income families to visit anytime. The free day pressure—for both families and the museum—is relieved. The Zimmer now strategically selects and programs four free days a year to engage in particular sponsor-ships, connect with particular segments of the community (i.e., the upcoming Special Needs Resource Fair in partnership with L.A. Parent magazine) or to align with par-ticipation with other collaborative initiatives and attract new audiences to the museum (i.e., Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day Live). With this combination, the Zimmer is able to leverage corporate sponsorships for free days, but the We All Play Initiative cre-ates a compelling fundraising story overall and accounts for a majority of foundational sup-port for the initiative and for the institution.

We All Play Access Initiative Julee Brooks

Zimmer Children’s MuseumTparticipation for children and families re-gardless of their ability to pay admission. In 2014, the museum expects to host over 11,000 individuals through this program—nearly 14 percent of the year’s projected to-tal attendance. The initiative includes four program pillars: 1) free admission for fami-lies who qualify through EBT (Electronic Benefit Transaction) cards; 2) free field trips for Head Start and Title I schools; 3) need-based financial assistance for fee-based pro-grams; and 4) free and discounted programs for the special needs community.

The EBT access mechanism launched this initiative that was successful in attracting many new children and families to the mu-seum, but it was not all about the numbers. In the process, museum staff learned how to make every visit experience satisfying and meaningful for this new audience.

Opening up Museums

EBT admissions started in 2005 when a partnership between the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the Department of Public Social Services (DPSS), recruited fifteen museums, gar-dens, and historical sites in Los Angeles to offer free admission to families who were enrolled in the California Work Opportunity and Respon-sibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program, the state’s rollout of the federal welfare-to-work program that gives cash aid and services to eligible needy California families. Accord-ing to LA County Arts, the arts-admission program called Free Fun for Families was designed to “provide low-income families the opportunity to experience, at no cost, family-focused events and exhibits that will expand their knowledge of art, culture and history in LA County.” The Zimmer Chil-dren’s Museum was an early adopter of the program that allows two adults and four children to be admitted when an adult in the party presents an EBT card.

The two main benefits of the EBT-based arts admission program housed in a central

The EBT access mechanism launched this initiative that was successful in attracting many new children and families

to the museum, but it was not all about the numbers. In the process, museum staff learned how to make every

visit experience satisfying and meaningful for this new audience.

As the EBT program allows low-income families to visit anytime, the free day pressure—for both families and the museum—is relieved.

The Zimmer now strategically selects and programs four free days a year.

14


Keeping it Going

The museum hopes to further mini-mize barriers to participation, but growing this segment of the audience requires at-tention to logistics and sustainability issues as well. Right now, EBT-qualified visitors must present a card to enter the museum every time. This doesn’t protect the family’s anonymity, so the museum is considering moving to a more streamlined member-ship program. The need-based scholarship program requires an application process for each program. It could be combined with the membership program, however, the 10 percent allotment of spaces for financial as-sistance would not accommodate the num-bers of families the EBT program serves, and staff does not want to be in the position of constantly disappointing families unable to participate.

Finally, ensuring that all families can play together requires keeping all fees (ad-missions, memberships, program fees) rea-sonable to enable middle-income families, who may not qualify for public programs, to participate. While the assumption that low-er prices yield less revenue, the growth of the Zimmer audience in recent years indicates that as a greater number of families can af-ford to pay reasonable rates, this model can serve the mission of increased access while increasing income and the keeping museum ultimately sustainable for everyone.

Julee Brooks was museum director of Zimmer Children’s Museum in Los Angeles, California.

The importance of choice and providing the same quality experience for low-income families as any other family that visits can-not be stressed enough. Through legitimate concerns about lost admissions revenue, access programs are offered at less optimal times or packed with too many visitors in too few hours compromising the experi-ence. The EBT program, however, diffuses the concentration of visitors and comfort-ably integrates them into general admis-sions. From a development perspective, with attendance rising—especially among low-income children—a more compelling case may be made to fund the museum in general. These opportunities more than out-weigh the modest increase in operating cost per visitor from the added traffic.

To Create a Culture of Engagement, Start with the Admissions Desk

Access is about more than waived fees. Successful engagement requires a host of other considerations and systems to be built into the fabric of the institution. Essentially, one of the greatest lessons the Zimmer has learned is that every family deserves choices in their participation, including the how and when of their visit, and when they ar-rive at the museum they deserve to feel just as welcome as the museum’s most loyal member. At the Zimmer admissions desk, the answer to the question “what’s the cost?” always includes, “…and free for members, EBT cardholders and active military fami-lies.” We never ask a family if they qualify but present the opportunity to participate in one of these programs if they choose to. Building a supportive and welcoming envi-ronment requires never making assumptions about visitors and exhibiting sensitivity to how all interactions may be perceived.

Seeking and Serving New Audiences

The other three pillars of the We All Play initiative—free field trips for Head Start and Title I schools, need-based financial assistance for fee-based programs, and free and discounted programs for the special needs community—complement the EBT admission program. Not only do field trips provide arts-integrated lessons for young children who may not otherwise experience them, but field trips are viewed specifically as opportunities for children to visit the mu-seum when other barriers may prevent them coming with their families. Parents’ week-end work schedules, transportation, traffic (notorious in LA), and even a lack of aware-ness of the museum entirely can prevent participation. By subsidizing school visits, thousands of children are introduced to a museum for the first time. Free passes are distributed to field trip visitors encouraging them to return with their families.

To further encourage families of all in-come levels to participate in the Zimmer’s camps and classes, 10 percent of all program spots are reserved for need-based scholar-ships. With significant program growth in the last few years. The Zimmer’s commit-ment to preserving access for low-income families keeps pace; revenue projections are adjusted to reflect that commitment. Finan-cial assistance guidelines follows the criteria for the FDA’s free and reduced lunch pro-gram with proof required (1040 or a dated assistance letter).

Finally, acknowledging the financial burden of families who are raising children with special needs, the Zimmer offers many options for this community—from Open Door Days, which provide free and exclu-sive use to families with children who have special needs, to allowing free entry for ther-apists who accompany families.

LEARNING fROM THE AUDIENCE: bi- and multi-lingual staff

In Los Angeles, one of the most culturally diverse cities on the planet, building a team that reflects that community and training the entire team in cultural competency is key to serving its diverse audience gracefully. Among the Zimmer’s visitor services and education staff ten languages are spoken. While needs differ, and some are very specific to individual communities, creating a space where all families feel comfortable before, during, and after their visit is essential to building meaningful and long-lasting rela-tionships with new audiences. Staff member name tags include “I speak ______” in all languages in which they are comfortable conversing with visitors. This simple step invites visitors to communicate in the language they prefer. The museum’s voicemail system offers menus in Spanish and Korean, the two most prevalent second languages spoken locally. Bilingual programming in several different languages provides a relaxed and welcoming invitation to classes for parents who may not feel comfortable in a class taught only in English.

15Hand to Hand Association of Children’s Museums


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for Young At Art Museum that is no excep-tion. As Aguilera explains, “There is always a learning curve whenever we begin work-ing with a particular audience. With Girls ‘N Power, our instructors had to find a delicate balance between supporting and urging teens who already were facing many life challenges. The issues that arise when talking about alter egos and self-image are personal and profound. Many times, partic-ipants would want to give up or shut down, and it was up to the instructors to try and coax ideas from them. That balance also is called upon when teaching teenagers new skills, such as painting, designing a gown and sewing it, or using a drawing program to manipulate photographs.”

During the past five years since that first Girls ‘N Power class, 160 girls have partici-pated in the program. In-house evaluation numbers tell a compelling story: 100 per-cent of the girls learn the basic elements of design, technique, color, form, composition, and photography by the end of the pro-

gram’s term; 100 percent use various forms of art to gain an understanding of complex issues of personal identity; 80 percent of the girls are exposed to an art gallery for the very first time; 90 percent improve their ability to work toward team and individual goals; and 80 percent show improvements in their behavior and begin to recognize their own self-worth.

Finding the right program groove leads to rewards for both students and instructors. “The Girls ‘N Power program is meant to empower students by using art as a means of self-expression,” said Aguilera. “The girls in this program are not just creating a pret-ty dress or portrait; they are learning skills which help them find their voices. The most surprising thing that I discovered from run-ning this program is that it’s the little things, such as learning to sew a dress, which can be life-changing experiences for them.”

As a senior account manager for Pierson Grant Public Relations, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Christine Feeley writes frequently for Young at Art Museum.

Art and Healingcontinued from page 7

[Girls “N Power] participants [create] original

wearable art, made from recycled materials

such as metallic mesh, newspaper, cardboard,

egg cartons, canvas, remnant fabric, bottle

caps, recycled plastics, and splatter paint.

museums for all - association of children's...

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