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The Children’s Museum has established a variety of programs to support our city, our neighborhoods, and the families that fill them. The Extraordinary Transformations campaign seeks to maintain and grow these programs. Your donation makes an impact on visitors tiny and tall. You create experiences and memories for ALL. In the My Museum blog series, we’re showing you just that.
As a non-profit organization, the museum provides transformative learning experiences for ALL children and families in our neighborhood, our city, our state, and even those outside of it. Here’s how we’re providing access to every kind of person—from wherever they may be:
Free Days
A few times every year, The Children’s Museum opens its doors with free admission to everyone, and it’s a TON of fun. Free and special programming, new exhibits, and classic ones too—visiting families can take their time, enjoy the day, and see the extraordinary. There will always be four free opportunities a year (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents Day, El Día de los Niños, and Christmas Eve), so visitors can come back more than once—at no cost!
Five-Dollar First Thursdays
If visitors are itching to visit, and don’t want to wait for another free day, on the first Thursday of every month, museum admission is five dollars between 4 and 8 p.m. Visitors can even buy their ticket ahead of time online. This provides multiple opportunities for families to come back to the museum at a reduced price.
Access Pass
Indiana families who participate in SNAP, Hoosier Healthwise Insurance, and TANF can visit the museum for $2 per qualifying household member per visit after filling out an application with required documents. Access Pass families can explore and discover the extraordinary as frequently as they want. Not only at The Children’s Museum, but at other participating museums and attractions across the state! Last year, Access Pass program participants visited the museum over 55,000 times.
Neighborhood Club
Residents within the six neighborhoods of the Mid-North area, with proof of residency, are qualified for a free membership to The Children’s Museum, including the Riley Children’s Health Sports Legends Experience opening in March 2018. This opportunity allows the families of our neighborhood area to enjoy exclusive opportunities to visit the museum and to embrace learning, fun, and community and to, in turn, develop pride for the neighborhood and the people that fill it. Last year, over 900 households participated in the program, visiting over 8,900 times
Foster Family Program
Licensed Indiana foster parents are also gifted with free annually renewable memberships to the museum. This program is a collaborative effort with the Indiana Department of Child Services. Once a month, a booth is set up at the museum known as the Heart Gallery. The gallery displays Indiana youth who are eligible to be adopted or in need of a foster home. In the Power of Children exhibit, visitors can make keychains with a hopeful message that is then gifted to a child in the local foster care system. Over 1,000 households were Foster Family households in 2016.
infoZone
Opened in December 2000, infoZone is a branch of the Indianapolis Public Library system. It was the nation’s first—and today remains the only—full-service public library branch inside a museum. It includes computer stations and over 10,000 books for children and families to freely explore and study the sciences, arts, history, and humanity through literature.
From across the country to across your front porch, your help allows us to be the foundation for extraordinary transformations every day. It’s what keeps the museum motivated to maintain and grow these community programs. After all, impact starts small.
Learn more or donate to the Extraordinary Transformations campaign.
