Good Things Happening Around Our Area

With all the negative news these days it is easy to overlook the great many positive things happening every day in our community - things that bode well for the future vitality of our area.

One of those things is the new Hands On Children's Museum planned for the East Bay Port property.


Click image to enlarge.

The following is an excerpt from today's Olympian editorial about the project (to read the full editorial visit: http://www.theolympian.com/opinion/story/791652-p2.html ):
New children's museum will be great asset
. . . It's hard to look at the schematic drawings and building blueprints (of the new Hands On Children's Museum) without getting excited about this most worthwhile project. A great deal of thought has gone into the planning of the new museum on the shores of southern Puget Sound - planning that will result in an outstanding tourist destination and an incredible asset for the South Sound community.
. . .
A special place
Close your eyes, and you can envision young children squealing with delight as they dash from one attraction to the next, exploring the multiple environmental elements of the outdoor learning center.
And that, if you haven't guessed it already, is the theme of the play area - a place where children can see and learn about the ecology that makes South Sound a special place to live.
From the outdoor space, children, their parents and grandparents will enter the wood-frame museum through a multi-story water tower. The theme of the warehouse-like building is "water and woods" - an important part of our past, our present and our future.
The first two floors will be mostly exhibit space. A cafeteria - with healthful foods only - and small museum store are tucked into one corner on the first floor.
Museum officials are wisely remaking and expanding the museum's most popular exhibits for the new space. Exhibits will focus on healthy lifestyles, water resources, the working waterfront, a wild woods gallery, cooking studio and early learning center, among others. There will be classroom space, room for the museum's 81 - student preschool and a large space for traveling exhibits.
A central staircase will lead to the second floor, where youngsters will be able to take a tubular slide back down to the ground floor.
Looking ahead
It's a standout project, based on an incredible vision and sound business plan. And to think that all of this grew from a group of parents with their museum-without-walls exhibit that they transported from one community event to the next in the late 1980s.
Museum officials conservatively estimate that 200,000 people will visit the $18 million museum in its first year of operation. That includes kids through the doors seven days a week, but also evening parties and entertainment events.
As they draw closer to their fundraising goals, museum supporters - and there are legions of them - will come to the community to ask South Sound residents to capture the vision and contribute to the capital campaign. It's an opportunity community residents won't want to miss.
It's guaranteed that the new Hands On Children's Museum will be a remarkable asset, not just for Olympia, but for the entire region.