Latest / Buying Local Podcast / Inside the World Awareness Children’s Museum | Buying Local #73

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Inside the World Awareness Children’s Museum | Buying Local #73 · Buying Local Podcast

0:00
Welcome everyone to Buying Local.
0:01
I'm your host, Mike Nelson from 5 Towers Media, joined today by
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Bethany Muska Lawrence from World Awareness Children's
0:10
Museum. Bethany, thank you for joining
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us. Thank you so much for having me.
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I'm very happy to be here. Yeah, yeah.
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And you know, I got to ask. I I bet you've been on other
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podcasts. Yeah, I've done a lot of these
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kinds of things before, but I've got lots of great information to
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share and I'm happy to talk to anybody who will listen.
0:30
Very nice. Yeah.
0:31
Awesome. You know, it's it's very
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exciting to see all the local podcasts that are popping up.
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I think we've written articles about it before.
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Like I think everybody should have a podcast.
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Whether you only have three listeners doesn't matter.
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Like everybody should have one. It's just such, such a great
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format for media and to be able to create content.
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So it's, it's very exciting. So, so Bethany, just in case.
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And I, I find it very hard to believe that people at this
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point would not know about the World Awareness Children's
1:03
Museum. You guys have been around.
1:06
God, I don't even know how long it's been.
1:08
I mean, I, I can remember when Jackie Tuba had like the set up
1:13
back in Bruce Moskowitz building on Glenn St. probably 20 years
1:17
ago, I think maybe 15 before you guys moved over to, to Warren
1:22
Street. But just in case for the two
1:25
people on the planet that don't know who you guys are, what you
1:27
guys do, maybe give us a little rundown about it.
1:30
Right. So we have actually been in
1:32
business for 31 years. Really that long?
1:35
31 years. Yeah, we got our official
1:38
charter from New York State Department of Education in 1995.
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So yeah, we've been all over Glens Falls and we have our our
1:46
home here that we've been in on Warren St. since we've owned the
1:49
building since about 2008. We've been here for that long.
1:55
But everything that we do at the World Awareness Children's
1:57
Museum comes back to our mission of bringing our diverse world to
2:01
children. That means teaching kids about
2:03
international cultures and the different cultures around the
2:07
United States through imaginative play, through
2:11
workshops and art making. And we do outreach programs in
2:15
schools all about diversity and cultural awareness and cultural
2:18
understanding. But that's what we do here at
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the museum as we have a hands on space for kids to explore.
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So you can come in during our regular open hours and you pay a
2:31
little bit of admission and you get to explore just like any
2:34
other children's museum. It's all hands on.
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But our mission is rooted in cultural understanding and art
2:43
making, and what we do revolves around art and culture.
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Whereas a lot of children's museums are more focused on the
2:50
general STEM part of of childhood development.
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And you love STEM, but our focus is more on arts and culture.
2:58
And arts and culture, yeah. And it's, I mean, I, you know,
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I've got 4 kids and all of them have been to the museum on more
3:07
than a few occasions, whether through preschool and
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kindergarten. And what what are the average
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age ranges do you think for most of the kids that you have come
3:16
through the museum? So we have stuff for kids ages 0
3:21
to 12 and even older. If you know you're coming with
3:23
little kids and some older siblings, they'll find something
3:27
to enjoy here, even if they're a little bit older.
3:31
In fact, we just last week hosted the delegation from Saga
3:35
City. The Glens Falls Sister City
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group came from Japan to Glens Falls to spend a week learning
3:42
about American culture. And they did stop by here at the
3:44
Children's Museum. And it was middle schoolers and
3:48
high schoolers, so ages 13 to 17.
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And they played and had a grand time.
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They had a just a great time playing and they were older.
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So even if your kids are a little bit older, just stop in.
4:00
You can come in one during one of our free days and, you know,
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check it out. Low risk.
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Yeah, low risk. Yeah, exactly.
4:09
And, and I should have asked Bethany, how long have you been
4:11
with the museum? Well, I've been working here
4:14
since March of 2018, and I've been the executive direct
4:17
executive director since November 2019.
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So just before the pandemic, I was kind of thrown to the fire,
4:23
like every. Yeah, I bet that was a a wild
4:27
ride. I know it was very interesting
4:30
for everybody going through that from a business standpoint.
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What? How did you?
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Are you from the Glens Falls area?
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Are you from around here? No, I'm not.
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So I'm from northern New Jersey, about 30 minutes outside of New
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York City, and I have a little bit of random experience in this
4:49
area, though I spent my summers growing up at a sleepaway summer
4:53
camp in Karim, but I had no plans to really move here until
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my husband. He got a a job at Adirondack
5:02
Studios and so we moved up here from where we were living in
5:05
Nashville. Very cool.
5:07
Oh, you came from Nashville, huh?
5:09
Yeah, we were living in Nashville.
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I was teaching elementary school and my husband was working.
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And, you know, he and I are both not from the Southeast, he's
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from Pennsylvania. But we both had, you know, it
5:21
was we had the option to move up here.
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And I love this area just for my summers being here as a kid, but
5:29
I'm so glad that we moved. I really have come to love this
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area and especially Glens Falls. It's just such a great city to
5:35
be part of. Yeah, yeah, it's, I mean, we
5:38
talk about it all the time up with guests on the show about
5:41
the, the community that we have here.
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You know, whether it's Glens Falls, Queensbury, Saratoga,
5:47
like essentially that whole Warren, Washington, Saratoga
5:50
County footprint just has such a great closely knit community and
5:55
so much going on. And I mean, you know, this is
5:58
where people come for vacations, right?
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It's it's pretty beautiful here and awesome.
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And so so you took the job in 2018 and then I assume the
6:08
opportunity came available for you to become the executive
6:11
director. So you you jumped at the chance.
6:13
Yes, I was very nervous and I remember thinking in November
6:17
2019, my husband and I had just gotten married, come back from
6:21
our honeymoon and the director at the time said, I didn't want
6:24
to stress you out while you were, you know, planning your
6:27
wedding and all of that. But I'm retiring and I'm
6:29
recommending you for the position of executive director.
6:32
And so I kind of, you know, I was very excited to do it, very
6:36
nervous. And I, like I said, I remember
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thinking, OK, 2019 was a great year, 2020, I'll just kind of be
6:43
along for the ride. I'll see how everything goes.
6:46
And of course, that was very different than what I expected.
6:49
And I had to do lots of different things to keep the
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museum going during the pandemic.
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But you know, it was trial by fire.
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Came out stronger on the other side though.
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Yeah, it definitely it, it presented a lot of business
7:04
challenges and and that's. And opportunities.
7:07
And opportunities. Are just opportunities to do
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this. Absolutely, absolutely.
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It's and you know what's interesting, I had never really
7:15
thought about it until I had Phil from lyric on the podcast.
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I want to say it was last maybe about a year ago.
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And you know, we're just having this conversation.
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And one thing that I had never considered, which is kind of
7:30
funny, but he really brought to light was the fact that just
7:35
because you're run running a, a nonprofit or not-for-profit
7:39
organization, it still is a business and you still have all
7:43
the challenges that any entrepreneur or small business
7:46
owner has. And probably even more so,
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right, because you're, I don't know if you guys get into like,
7:52
you know, grants and, you know, getting money sometimes from the
7:56
state or from the federal government, but that's a whole
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set of problems. And so I say that because I'm
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just curious, you know, as you stepped into that executive
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role, like from a running the business standpoint, what kind
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of challenges do you see with the museum?
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Well, our challenges in 2019 and 2020 were very different than
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they are now. Obviously 2020 was just get
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through it, you know, see how we can survive and if we can thrive
8:24
a little bit then we'll take it, you know.
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But currently our challenges are just like any other business,
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right. We need money to to pay our
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staff and to keep our business going.
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How we get that money is obviously different from a for
8:37
profit institution. So as a not-for-profit, we rely
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heavily on the generosity of our community and on the people who
8:46
love what we do and love our museum.
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So a lot of our income comes from individual donors.
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Obviously the museum admission that people pay when they come
8:55
in. We try to keep it as low as
8:57
possible, but it does help us keep things afloat and keep our
9:01
lights on. But to that point, you know, we
9:05
have our general admission which is $7.00 per person.
9:08
Kids under 1 year old are always free.
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So you know, they can come in with their grown-ups and they're
9:13
free because they're not really doing much yet.
9:16
Then we offer monthly free days, which are generally support,
9:20
generously supported by Stewart's and Stewart's holiday
9:23
match. So if you supported Stewart's
9:24
holiday match, a portion of that is supporting the Children's
9:28
Museum and the greater community.
9:29
So thanks if you donated to them, but we have those monthly
9:34
free days where anybody can come in once a month on that
9:37
designated day totally for free. And if they like it, hopefully
9:40
they'll come back and support us in different ways.
9:43
We also offer low cost admission for people who are on SNAP
9:49
benefits or have an EBT card or use WIC.
9:53
That we try to support the community as much as the
9:55
community supports us by offering really free and low
9:59
cost opportunities for people who need them.
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So we get admission, you know, we sell some things in our gift
10:07
shop and that helps support us. But really our biggest
10:10
supporters are the individual donors.
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We do, you know, seek out grants and they're mostly local grants.
10:18
We're not really at this point approaching state and federal
10:23
there. You know, the federal grants of
10:26
this time. If you talk to any nonprofit,
10:28
you'll probably hear that currently federal grants are
10:31
really tricky just because of the current administration's
10:34
priorities, though they're not really something that we're
10:38
applying for at this time. So we focus mainly on local
10:41
grants, local support from businesses and individuals.
10:48
Awesome. And I, you know, I'm, I'm
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curious as, as you're talking, I was thinking about the fact that
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you're a school teacher in Tennessee and now you're running
10:59
a business. What was that?
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Did you ever think that that's what you'd be doing at some
11:03
point was was running a business?
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I always thought I'd be in leadership in some way.
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I just have that I, I'm, I like being a leader.
11:12
I was the old, well, I am still the oldest of seven children in
11:15
my family. I have 6 younger siblings.
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And so I've always been in that leadership position by default.
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And also being a teacher is a leadership position.
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I was a teacher for elementary and at the time in Nashville
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when I was teaching preschool and I always talk about how my
11:34
management skills and my management like procedures and,
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and the way that I approach people is very similar to how
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you approach children. You know, giving everybody a
11:47
voice, letting them have their opinion and their thoughts and
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giving them space to express them.
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But then also managing people is just like many managing
11:56
children. So it's, it doesn't, there's not
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much different. Of course I'm now looking at a
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lot of the financial side as well, but managing people,
12:06
managing children is very similar.
12:09
Yeah, yeah. You know, it's, it's interesting
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because I have a very new, not, I shouldn't say new found, but
12:19
my respect for teachers has grown exponentially in the last
12:22
year. We're homeschooling our
12:23
kindergartner and I'm just like, I don't know how people do this
12:27
with 20 kids in the class or whatever it is.
12:30
I'm like I'm I'm struggling with just one so.
12:34
Yeah, it's a really hard job, and I'm so grateful to all the
12:36
teachers that are still in it. It's plus jobs sometimes, and I
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think that people underestimate how much patience you need when
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you're teaching. You know, I remember this is
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just a little funny aside, but I would sometimes go into my
12:52
closet and just silently scream in my closet and then, you know,
12:56
take a couple deep breaths and walk back out.
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And then I was fine, you know, But it takes a lot of work to
13:02
manage kids into the be a teacher.
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But, you know, so I don't do much teaching currently, but I
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do get to teach the kids downstairs every once in a
13:12
while. And I still love to do it.
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I'm just grateful that now I'm managing adults.
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And I guess on some level, maybe maybe it's easier, I don't know,
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but I'm not sure about that. But so I know we're going to
13:28
talk about the kind of the things you have coming up at the
13:30
museum. But before we do that, I wanted
13:32
to backtrack a little bit and, you know, just talk about the,
13:37
the ongoing programs that you have at the at the museum
13:41
itself, right. So obviously you kind of have
13:43
the, the open hours where anyone can just come in and, and use
13:47
the facilities and explore and play.
13:49
And you know, I think it's probably been about a year since
13:52
I've been there last. However, I like I said earlier,
13:57
my all my kids loved it, right, Like it did the ability to go in
14:01
the different, I don't want to say displays, but the little
14:04
different areas that you have around the museum are just are
14:07
so much fun and and they all loved it.
14:11
You work a lot with schools like you have like, I mean, I know
14:13
that I've been there on more than a few occasions through my
14:16
kids schools. Is that is that you do a lot of
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that kind of stuff? Yes, we do.
14:22
So we send programs into schools, like into your kids
14:25
classroom, for instance, and whatever our educators goes
14:28
there and, and we'll teach on a specific topic.
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And so we do that very often. And then we also have schools
14:35
come to us on field trip and those are really fun as well.
14:38
So I think that's what you're talking about.
14:40
But especially May and June, once the school year is almost
14:44
over and the teachers are like looking for any opportunity to
14:47
get their class out of the school and into a different
14:50
location, that's when a lot of them come to us and we love it.
14:53
Yeah. And do you deal with pretty much
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all the local schools in the area?
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We do, yeah. Most of the local schools
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participate in our programs in one way or another.
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And like I said, we love our school programs.
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We love partnering with schools and creating relationships with
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those school teachers. And often we get them back year
15:14
after year after year because it is such a valuable experience
15:17
for the kids. Yeah, yeah.
15:19
It's like I said, I mean, it was just fun even for the adults,
15:23
you know, because of course we go there with with especially
15:26
like the preschool age kids, right, your or your pre-K kids
15:29
where you're going there with your children.
15:31
They're all doing their things and you end up getting getting
15:34
roped into playing with sushi or corn or whatever, whatever's in
15:39
the displays. So the little camping on.
15:42
It gives us adults a chance to use our imagination.
15:45
Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of fun. So let's talk about what's
15:49
coming up. So I know.
15:50
Tell me about the Gallo that's coming up.
15:52
That's every year. Yeah.
15:53
So we're in our 36th year of this particular fundraiser.
15:57
It's the international Cuisine Dinner and auction.
15:59
And this year it's held at the Queensbury Hotel on May 17th and
16:04
it's that's a Sunday, so May 17th, 4:30 to 8:00 PM at the
16:08
Queensbury Hotel. And this fundraiser helps us
16:10
raise money for all of our programs.
16:13
So whether it's our outreach programs, our workshops, it
16:17
really it just helps us raise money to support the museum and
16:21
support the work that we do within the community.
16:24
Last year we raised just over $50,000 and this year our goal
16:29
that we're shooting for is 60,000.
16:32
So I hope people can come and support us.
16:34
It's a really great event. We have food donated from
16:38
restaurants all over the area, really wonderful food.
16:42
The entree this year is plated and served, which is a little
16:44
bit elevated from last year where it was a buffet, so we're
16:48
hoping that people will enjoy that.
16:50
And the theme is Brazilian Carnival, so you can expect some
16:53
Brazilian inspired entertainment and food.
16:56
Very fun. So as far as the entertainment,
16:59
help me understand that, what does that mean?
17:01
Like there's dancing and all sorts.
17:05
Yeah. So we haven't finalized all of
17:07
the entertainment for this year, but I can tell you that
17:09
typically we have live music, some dancing, sometimes some
17:15
demonstrations of different things, but it's a lot of fun.
17:18
There is a silent auction, a live auction, a raffle and good
17:23
food. I mean, what else can you ask
17:25
for? Yeah, right.
17:27
What as far as the silent auction goes, how do you guys
17:30
typically run that? Is it do you get?
17:31
Are there organizations that are donating items for the silent
17:34
auction? Yep, we get a lot of donations
17:37
from local businesses and just like with anything, we build
17:41
relationships with them and they donate year after year, so we
17:44
can always expect some great stuff.
17:46
So it's stuff, but also experiences.
17:49
Yeah, yeah. And if if local businesses, do
17:55
you have everybody you need for the silent auction right now or
17:58
are you still looking for? We're certainly still looking.
18:01
So we've got about a month and a half left planning for this
18:04
event and then it'll happen in a month and a half.
18:07
But we're certainly still accepting items from local
18:10
businesses and sponsorships from local businesses.
18:13
We currently have 13 sponsors and we'd love to get up to 20 if
18:17
possible. So if people are interested in
18:19
sponsoring, it's a great way to get your your business name out
18:22
there and showing that you support the kids in our
18:25
community and the work that we're doing here at the museum.
18:28
So it's a great opportunity to support the Children's Museum
18:33
and also kind of give your business a little lift in the
18:37
community too. Yeah, yeah.
18:39
Is there any certain kind of items that you would like to
18:42
have as silent item sale and auction items that you don't
18:45
have yet? Well, we love gift baskets, but
18:49
we also can take gift cards, you know, service donations.
18:53
If you want a business where you do a service, you know, we would
18:56
love to offer that as an auction item.
19:00
You know, sometimes people will do like one free car cleaning,
19:03
you know, you know, detailing on your car or something like that.
19:08
We love those opportunities, but we love just items.
19:12
If you've got items you want to donate, like if your retail
19:16
store will take some of your, you know, donations of, of stuff
19:19
from your store or you know, free manicure or free pedicure
19:24
or you know, that kind of thing. But we'll take anything and
19:27
we'll put it together in the package and make it look really
19:29
great. Cool, very cool.
19:32
I'll I've just made me think of a couple of businesses that I
19:35
know that I think would be a good fit.
19:37
So I'll reach out to them and and see if I can I can rope them
19:40
in. Yeah, or at least looking for
19:43
more people to help rope people in.
19:45
That's. Right.
19:45
That's right. And so after the gal, which I I
19:49
had, I can't even imagine. I feel like I'm so fortunate
19:53
that I don't have to plan events like that because anyone I talk
19:55
to like the amount of planning logistics and leading up to and
19:59
nothing ever goes to plan right. And then you need to get this
20:03
big sigh of relief after the events over.
20:06
Yeah, it's a big undertaking, but I have a really great team
20:10
of volunteers and staff that helped me put it together every
20:13
year and really I couldn't do it without them.
20:16
So I'm grateful for them and their help and it they make it
20:18
easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
20:21
So after after the gala, what what comes next?
20:24
What do you guys have come coming up for the the summer
20:26
lineup? Right, so summer is coming up
20:29
really fast and you know I'm sitting here on March 31st,
20:34
right? Is it the 31st already?
20:36
And I'm already thinking well into April, May and June.
20:40
So my mind is always a bunch of months ahead, but for starting
20:45
in June, we're open seven days a week for the summer time and
20:49
that goes from end of June to Labor Day.
20:52
We're open every single day except for July 4th, 10:00 AM to
20:55
3:00 PM. And we have tons of visitors
20:58
that come in every single day. During the summer.
21:01
We get tons of visitors from out of state.
21:03
People who are here visiting Lake George and Saratoga will
21:06
always come to the museum as well.
21:09
We're lucky in that we're one of the only children's activities
21:12
that you can do that is not weather dependent, you know, So
21:16
when it's raining and the theme park is closed or it's, you
21:20
know, not as fun for the kids because it's pouring, they'll
21:23
come here and hang out with us all day.
21:25
So we've got our summer hours coming up in June and then in
21:28
August we have our annual summer camps, our museum summer camps.
21:33
So we've got sessions for ages or for grade levels pre-K
21:37
through 2nd grade. We've got two of those sessions
21:41
this summer. One is Messy Art camp and one is
21:45
Pirate Adventure Camp, and those are so much fun.
21:48
They're three hours for the littlest kids.
21:51
And I think we're one of the only groups that that offers
21:55
little kids summer camps. A lot of them, you know, are for
21:58
older elementary school and beyond, so we offer that.
22:02
But then we also have programs for 3rd through 6th graders.
22:05
We've got a music and movement class for them where they'll
22:07
drum and learn music and things from international cultures.
22:11
And then we have Urban Explorer, our camp, which is the camp that
22:14
I lead each year, and it's six hours for five days, so Monday
22:20
through Friday. And in that, when we go around
22:22
to all the arts organizations, or a lot of them in Glens Falls,
22:27
we walk from the museum every day downtown.
22:30
Sometimes we go to the Hide, which is opposite of downtown.
22:33
We'll go to the Chapman Museum, we'll go to the Shirt Factory
22:37
and one of the theaters, either the Park Theatre or the Wood
22:40
Theatre. We go to the library and we
22:42
really talk about arts as a whole.
22:45
So like literary arts, theatrical arts, 2 dimensional
22:48
art, 3 dimensional art, textile arts, street art, you know, so
22:53
we talked about every piece of art that you well, every type of
22:56
art you can imagine. And we, we talk a lot about what
22:59
the arts organizations in town are doing to enhance the arts in
23:06
Glens Falls. So hopefully once the kids leave
23:10
Urban Explorer Camp, they will tell their parents all about
23:14
what they learned. And then the goal is to have
23:16
them return to these arts organizations that participate
23:20
in our program every summer and hopefully feel more confident
23:24
going into the Chapman, for example, or the Hyde or Lerac
23:28
and knowing what they're going into.
23:30
And then they can kind of share that information with their
23:32
grown-ups. So it's a wonderful program.
23:35
They leave with the kids at summer camp, leave with a whole
23:40
notebook or binder or packet, you know, whatever that session
23:43
calls for. They leave with a ton of good
23:46
stuff to take home with them. All the programs are run by
23:50
adults. Me and the other staff people,
23:52
we're all over 18. I know a lot of the summer camp
23:55
programs locally have teenagers working, which is great, but
23:58
like, we're all adults taking care of your kids.
24:01
So I hope that lends a different level of trust for us.
24:06
And it's just there's so much fun and they are really, they
24:11
have a lot of value. And so we hope that people will
24:14
check us out for summer camp, too.
24:16
Yeah, and are all the summer camps 5 days?
24:20
Yep, they're all Monday through Friday.
24:22
So one week, one week in August for each one, The one so it's
24:28
every week in August has a summer camp session going on.
24:31
Fun, fun, fun. And now I know you said there
24:34
was a couple different kinds. Are there?
24:38
Like could, it sounds like there's different age groups for
24:41
a couple of them, so you wouldn't want, yeah, like your 6
24:44
year old's not going to go to all four of them, but that might
24:46
be. Correct.
24:48
Yeah, So we have those two weeks for the little kids, pre-K
24:51
through 2nd grade, two weeks for the older kids through through
24:55
6th grade. That's fun.
24:58
I'm sure the older kids appreciate the the age.
25:01
The little kids would love to be grouped to the big kids, but.
25:06
That's true, but we have a lot of fun during the summer.
25:09
And like I said, we try to pack in as much value for the kids
25:12
and the parents as well as we can because we know that when it
25:17
comes to, you know, tough economy, tough economic times,
25:22
the first thing to go are leisure activities.
25:25
And so as as much as we can, whether it's here at, you know,
25:28
at the museum for on site like workshops and art programs and
25:32
things, or it's summer camp or any of our outreach programs, we
25:37
try to pack in as much value as possible because we know that
25:40
people's money, you know, is, is not nothing.
25:44
You know, it's important. And we want to have that
25:48
consistent reputation of being worth the cost, you know, so we
25:55
try to do that as much as possible because all of us here,
25:57
we all understand what it's like to have a smaller paycheck than
26:01
you'd like. You know, that's just nonprofit
26:03
work. We do it because we love it and
26:05
not because we're making millions of dollars.
26:08
Oh, so we would like to see value.
26:11
And we hope that everybody sees value in what we do.
26:14
And and the, you know, it's sees us as, like I said, worth the
26:18
cost. Yeah, yeah.
26:20
Well, I mean, 31 years running here, I'm, I'm sure people must
26:24
see the value if you've made it that long, right?
26:26
Yes, Oh yeah. But we're always looking for
26:28
people to get involved in new ways and for new people to get
26:32
involved. So you know, if anybody's
26:34
listening and they're interested in in coming in and seeing what
26:38
we're doing is like a behind the scenes tour, please reach out
26:41
and I'd love to show you. Yeah.
26:43
And, and what does that typically look like for people
26:45
if they want to volunteer and they want to help?
26:47
Is it? Yeah, we have different things
26:49
to volunteer at. So we have event specific
26:51
volunteers, whether it's joining an event committee or helping
26:55
out. For instance, at the balloon
26:56
festival where we run the bouncy house village every September.
27:02
So you know, event specific, but there's also ways to get
27:05
involved that are more long term, whether it's in our art
27:08
collection. I haven't even told you about
27:10
the art collection, I'll tell you or getting involved in our
27:15
education programs and, and you know, leading some educational
27:18
opportunities. There's many ways to get
27:21
involved, but the art collection.
27:24
Yeah, tell me about the art collection.
27:26
Incredibly important part of what we do.
27:28
So we have a collection of over 8000 pieces of international
27:34
child made artwork. So youth from four years old up
27:38
to 1819 years old have created artwork from all over the world
27:43
and we have, you know all of that.
27:48
So this collection dates back to 1988 and it features over about
27:55
100 countries are represented in this collection and it is the
28:00
largest collection of international youth artwork on
28:03
the East Coast and the second largest in the country.
28:07
So everything that we do here is inspired by the artwork that we
28:10
have in our collection. So obviously our mission is what
28:14
grounds it all together, bringing our diverse world to
28:17
children. And the way that we do that is
28:19
through like, you know, the hands on space for children, the
28:22
outreach programs, the workshops and things, but it all really is
28:26
tied together by the art collection.
28:30
So the the exhibits that you see in the museum are inspired by
28:34
art in our collection. The programs that we offer use
28:38
art from the collection as an educational tool.
28:41
And the way that we talk about it and we tell people what the
28:44
art is really for. Obviously it's nice to look at
28:47
because some of these kids are incredibly talented and you
28:49
would not think that a kid did them.
28:52
But the real thing that we use this art for is really seeing
28:58
the world through the eyes of of children and so that kids can
29:02
see the world through the perspective of other kids just
29:06
like them, but from a different country, a different place.
29:10
So it's an educational tool. They are historical documents,
29:13
really capturing a moment in time, sometimes of a specific
29:16
historical event or sometimes of just a day in the life.
29:21
So they're educational, they're artistic, and they're
29:24
historical. And I hope that, you know, if
29:27
you come and visit the Children's Museum, take a look
29:29
on the walls and you'll see the art from our collection.
29:32
Not all of it, but some of it. But some of it, yeah, I was, I
29:36
was going to ask, do you have, because I didn't remember seeing
29:39
like a gallery, I guess, you know, or, or I know that
29:44
there's, you know, there's stuff everywhere, but do you
29:47
essentially just have most of that in storage and you pull it
29:49
out when you kind of move things around or, or how do you use it?
29:53
Yeah, that's, that's mostly how it works at this point.
29:55
We don't have a designated gallery space just because we
29:59
don't have the space. We're all, we're act full right
30:01
now. So we do have a lot of the art
30:04
in storage, but we try to take it out and rotate the pieces
30:08
that are hanging up in the museum at least once or twice a
30:11
year. We also have an exhibit at the
30:15
Mall at Aviation Mall right now by Target.
30:18
We have an A storefront that we, you know, showcase some things
30:21
and so you can always see us there.
30:23
But we're looking right now for places to loan our exhibitions
30:28
as we do have that option if there are businesses or, you
30:32
know, sometimes doctor's offices will rent an exhibition from us
30:35
for a year. We're happy to talk to anybody
30:38
about that as well. OK, fun.
30:42
So Bethany, if people want to learn more about the museum, we
30:46
are what you do. Get involved.
30:48
More information on galas and summer camps.
30:51
How do they find you guys? They can find
30:53
us.online@worldchildrensmuseum.org. Perfect.
30:58
And are you guys on the on the social medias these days?
31:02
You do all that stuff? Yeah.
31:03
Yes, we are. Yep, you'll find us on Facebook,
31:05
Instagram, World Awareness, Children's Museum, LinkedIn as
31:10
well, so check us out wherever you feel like going.
31:13
Awesome. Like and subscribe.
31:15
Exactly. Well, Bethany, thank you so much
31:18
for coming on the show and and spending a little time with our
31:21
listeners and our viewers and our readers really appreciate
31:25
you taking the time. Yeah, of course.
31:27
Thank you so much for having me. I'm, you know, have, like I
31:30
said, happy to talk to everybody and anybody I can about what we
31:33
do here. Absolutely sounds good.
31:36
Well, thanks so much and of course, thanks everybody for
31:38
listening and watching and for reading.
31:40
For those of you that pick up the print publication as well
31:43
each month, you can find our podcasts on Spotify, Rumble,
31:47
YouTube and Apple Podcasts, of course.
31:50
And then our website is buying local dot US.
31:53
You can find not only this podcast, but all the other ones
31:57
we've done as well and some of the other media offerings that
32:00
we have. So check us out and you'll hear
32:02
from us next week, everybody. Thanks.