Okay, okay, so we couldn’t pick just 10. Despite our exhibits hall not yet opening, this was a big year for us, including a lot of firsts in our new home at 7 Eustis Parkway!
In no particular order, here they are:
1. We hosted our first May Day tea party, concluding with a May Pole. This was such a sweet event, we hope to continue the tradition. You can read more about it here.
2. Our last afterschool session of the year, Rad Robots, was not only a blast, but gave kids the opportunity to make a meaningful connection with real-life research going on at Colby College, when we had visitors from their robotics lab come to talk to our students, which has lead to making new connections for future afterschool programs, like Beyond the Stars, which starts in January.
3. Perhaps our favorite first happened at our Kids in the Woods summer camp, where Aurora rode a mountain bike without training wheels for the first time! Way to go Aurora!
4. We hosted our first birthday party in our new space! (And you can too, if you’re interested shoot Caitlin an email at caitlin@childrensdiscoverymuseum.org)
5. We reached a funding milestone of nearly 90% complete funding for our new exhibits hall of our $1.6 million total project cost.
6. We welcomed our first school group at our new location, something we did frequently in our old space in Augusta. The George J. Mitchell School visited and explored our mobile museum and other activities over three days this spring on our beautiful museum lawn.
7. We created six brand-new Mobile Museum panels that have been getting tons of use out in the community as part of our free programming, and most recently at our weekly Toddler Power Hour.
8. Executive Director Amarinda Keys attended the Association of Children’s Museums Conference in St. Louis, MO and brought back valuable tools and resources.
9. Girl Scout Troop 545 held a sleepover at the museum where they practiced for an upcoming camping trip, pitching tents, watching a movie and preparing breakfast in our Gathering Hall and kitchen space.
10. In partnership with Bangor Savings Bank, we hosted a Touch-a-Truck event. Kids had a blast checking out all the buttons, bells and whistles of police trucks, fire trucks, excavators, and army trucks.
11. Our very first event at our new Waterville space, STEM-a-palooza was a huge success and exceeded our expectations. Hosted with our friends at the Maine State Museum, kids and their grown-ups had a blast turning our giant empty exhibits hall into a cardboard city. It was an amazing sight to behold when it was completed! They also got to explore robotics and AI technology and the new mobile museum pieces.
12. We kicked off our Capital Campaign with a bang this spring with our Family Fun Day, including mobile museum, Waterville Public Library story time, gardening, museum tours, food trucks, face painting, other community partner visitors, live music and more!
13. We held our performance of The Stage at CDM, our new kids’ entertainment series, which also included cleaning it off, a feat our Colby student volunteers helped with (you should have seen the dust pile we swept up!).
14. We held our first exhibit prototyping with a Girl Scout Troop, giving our designer Rusty Lamar valuable feedback on the campfire exhibit going into our Rural Zone.
15. We held an artist workshop, where kids created real pieces that will be displayed in the museum, led by a real-life artist and Lunder Resident Fellow Veronica Perez.
16. Construction has started! – Our new HVAC system was installed in the exhibits hall.
17. We completed the final approval process for our USDA loan that allowed us to purchase our new building, this was the culmination of a two-year process and a big deal!
19. Our designer Rusty Lamar released a first sketch of what our interactive donor wall will look like. Consider becoming a part of it, read more here.
Top 5 Most Popular Blog Posts:
And 5 blogs you might have missed or worth another read:
1. The Power of Play & Process in Art, by guest blogger and board member Serena Sanborn
2. Also by Serena, Finding Your “Wow”s on a Nature Walk
Thank you for a wonderful 2022! We are so looking forward to connecting with you even more through exiting new and continued programming and our brand-new exhibits hall in 2023!