Hands On Children’s Museum Receives Major Gifts

Melissa Jackson
Hands On Children’s Museum
Phone: 360.956.0818

OLYMPIA, Wash. — South Sound families can look forward to a larger, more exciting youth museum thanks to lead gifts from major foundations, businesses and community organizations to fund the campaign to expand the Hands On Children’s Museum in Olympia.

The Museum’s largest foundation gift to date was an early pledge of $100,000 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “This significant gift gave our campaign a running start, lending regional credibility to our efforts,” notes Capital Campaign Tri-Chair Bill Jacobs.

The Museum also received a $25,000 gift from the Paul G. Allen Charitable Foundation, and other major grants from The Forest Foundation, AT&T, and the Gannett and Lassen Foundations.

The Museum has experienced rapid growth, hosting 55,000 visitors each year since opening in its new location on the Capitol Campus in 1998. With more visitors per square foot of exhibit space than any other children’s museum in the Northwest, the Museum is currently renting church classrooms across the street and opening the Museum during closed hours to try to accommodate the demand for workshops, camps and field trips.

Over the past six months, the Museum has raised 65 percent of its campaign goal of $765,000 to expand the current Museum into 5,600 square feet of adjacent space on the Capitol Campus. The additional space will bring the Museum to 10,400 square feet and will include an entire new Build It! Gallery with exhibits on building, construction and design.

The expansion will also feature a larger art studio, dedicated classrooms, a volunteer area, and a new early learning center – the only one of its kind in Western Washington.

Lead campaign gifts from the community include a pledge by Sunrise Construction and the Olympia Master Builders to assist in renovating the new space. Numerous individuals and area businesses also stepped forward early including Olympia Federal Savings, the Western Institutional Review Board, Port Blakely Tree Farms, and Simpson Timber Company.

The Museum will now go to the community to raise the additional $365,000 to complete the campaign. The expanded Museum is scheduled to open in the spring of 2001.

For more information about the expansion, exhibit sponsorships, and contributing to the campaign, contact Melissa Jackson at the Hands On Children’s Museum at 360-956-0818.