Our NEW Exhibit
THE LOUISIANA WETLANDS Opens!
Celebrate
a Cajun Christmas as we unveil the NEW Louisiana Wetlands at the Children’s
Museum on Saturday, December 17, at 10 a.m.!
Santa
Claus, Gumbeaux Gator and Claudia the Crawfish will all be here for the grand
opening! The opening also kicks off a two-week celebration of activities for
children of all ages!
The
Louisiana Wetlands, presented by the City of Lake Charles and Sempra Energy,
is an interactive area that teaches children about our fragile ecosystem!
An
Appeal From Our Executive Director
In
2012, your Children’s Museum will enter its 8th year downtown. I want to
take a moment to ask you for your help in continuing our mission. The museum
is facing new challenges and encountering new opportunities, and both are
going to require major funds. Help empower children with a place of their own!
The Children’s Museum is radically different from other kids’ centers, in
that we do not have a major donor. We are at heart a community organization,
in the largest sense of the word possible. Even our largest single donor, the
United Way
of Southwest Louisiana, combines the donations from across
Southwest Louisiana
into an allocation of $20,000-30,000 dollars.
Meanwhile
thousands of people, many of them from up and down the I-10 corridor, visit us
each year. Our theme is simple: we are a place for children and their families
to learn and grow, through the power of play. All you have to do to see this
is come for one visit. Children feel empowered here, and rightly so. This is a
radical concept, which kids find extreme value in their abandoned, almost wild
desire to explore by doing.
The
result so far has been overwhelming success. Thanks to our wonderful members,
volunteers and supporters, we are routinely rated as one of the favorite
places by those who matter: the kids themselves. As our traffic grows, the
stakes become higher, with more exhibits, more upkeep and greater costs. In
order for the Children’s Museum to move forward, we need the help of
everyday people like you, people who share in our dream of a local space for
kids in which they can feel free to touch, look, and explore. Our budget has
grown as our facility has, with three floors of integrated exhibits and an
operating budget approaching $400,000.00.
We
will need every bit of this amount to keep up our facility and upgrade
exhibits that get extreme wear and tear each year. But the wonderful thing
about our growth is that it gives us a real opportunity to extend our
fundraising beyond just what we need to keep the doors open. Why do I think we
need to expand and upgrade? Because our children’s needs are changing. I’m
not talking about the familiar line of technology. Personally, I think
technology is not what exhibits should be about. They should be about
fundamental concepts in science, in the arts, and in socialization. Personal
interaction with other family members and other children is a vital part of
play that today’s kids desperately need because human beings are capable of
so much more when they truly work and interact together.
And
that is what the Children’s Museum is all about: you will find our young
visitors working with other kids or family members to figure out how they can
play together as a group. I’m also requesting your help, personally, for my
new granddaughter, who will grow up in a world potentially faced with crowded
isolation. I think that she will be far ahead if she has learned to socialize
in a safe environment of free play. Because freedom begets responsibility, and
responsibility begets citizenship and the backbone of our society. The
Children’s Museum has been in
Southwest Louisiana
since 1988. We’ve already made a difference to one generation. With your
help we can stay in
Southwest Louisiana
and show our new generation of kids what a community can really do. Please
consider a generous donation to the Children’s Museum.
Dan
Ellender, Executive
Director
