As seen in Burlington Free Press - Vermont

Children's Museum Plans Take Shape

By John Briggs
Free Press Staff Writer

December 11, 2008
It was in the spring of 2003 that talk began at Mia Beer’s kitchen table in Shelburne to create a local children’s museum. The obstacles were manifold: no money, no clear plan or expertise, and no location.

Nearly six years later, the Green Mountain Children’s Museum is beginning to take shape.

It appears to have a home: The museum and the well-established Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center will share a remodeled Moran power plant with Ice Factor, a for-profit adventure company that intends to build a ice-climbing and rock-climbing wall inside the plant.

Local voters approved the project in March. Since then, the city’s Community and Economic Development Office has been working with the MUGs, shorthand for the Moran users’ group, to move the $21 million plan toward construction.

Beer, the museum board chairwoman, and Ann Klinkenberg, a board member, told The Burlington Free Press they and other board members have been meeting with childhood development specialists from the University of Vermont and Champlain College, from Head Start, the Refugee Resettlement Program and others to settle on the exhibits the museum will have when it opens it doors — they hope — in 2010.

• Related coverage: Moran project moves ahead

They’ve also had professional help from Margaret Crocker, director of the Discovery Center of the Southern Tier, a children’s museum in Binghamton, N.Y.

“We have an idea of where we’re going,” Beer said, “but we don’t want to lay out the whole idea with´out getting feedback from the community.”

Though they have drawings of fairy-tale-like artificial trees, the details are still in flux. Beer and Klinkenberg said the space available in the plant, likely on the first floor, will be 7,000 to 10,000 square feet — the size of two good-sized suburban homes.

Generally speaking, Beer said, the expectation at a children’s museum is to have an atmosphere that encourages children “to touch and manipulate and explore.”

“And to do so,” Klinkenberg said, “in an unstructured way that allows them to react differently with the exhibits each time.”

They said the museum will be aimed at children up to 8 years old (including infants) and will convey that “this is about our community.”

“We want the children’s museum to reflect the richness of our community,” Beer said. “We’re flexible. This community has so many people with art and education experience, as well as craftsmanship. We’d love their help and ideas.”

The museum board, which meets monthly, Beer said, is looking for a museum director, “someone with fundraising experience.”

The voter-approved plan estimated the cost of the museum at slightly more than $2 million, but Beer said the board is trying to do the work for less. “This has to be affordable for the community and sustainable,” she said. “We want to be here for many years — a permanent fixture in the community.”

Beer and Klinkenberg said they and the other prospective Moran tenants met this week with architects from Freeman French Free´man, the firm hired to turn the plans of the tenants into an overall plan, with a revised budget, by the end of March.

Contact John Briggs at 660-1863 or jbriggs@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com .