What a picture in The Chronicle this week.
Two men, long-retired from distinguished careers, holding up a donation check for the eye-popping sum of $45,000, dedicated to building a museum of discovery for kids young enough to be their grandchildren.
It was inspiring to learn, not only that the local Rotary’s recent auction was wildly successful in its goal of raising money for the Discover! Children’s Museum, but that the museum project itself has the finish line in view after a dozen years of hard work by some incredibly dedicated folks.
Kelly Vanasse still vividly remembers the moment in 2007 when that dream of a children’s museum in Chehalis was born.
Vanasse, a preschool teacher, was leading a field trip to the Hands-On Children’s Museum in Olympia (then located next-door to the Capitol). After dealing with limited parking and walking a group of young kids for blocks along city streets during the depths of winter, Vanasse was chatting with parents about how nice it would be to have a children’s museum in Chehalis.
Renell Norquist, the mother of a 4-year-old in Vanasse’s class, seized on the idea.
“Renell was like, you’re right, we need to do that. We need to get on that,” Vanasse told me this week.
Within a month, they had invited Dr. Isaac Pope (the only member of the Chehalis City Council whom they knew) out to discuss the idea at Sweet Inspirations.
“We bought him a strawberry milkshake,” Vanasse said. “I’ll never forget. It snowballed from there.”
Soon they were meeting with Allyn Roe (then working at the Chehalis-Centralia Airport), Corinne Aiken (then director of the Chehalis library), and dedicated civic entrepreneur Larry McGee every week in a little room at the library.
After countless meetings and late nights to get it ready, they opened a small pilot museum in February of 2013.
The idea was to measure the level of interest in the community to gauge whether a fundraising effort to build a full-scale museum had the support necessary.
The pilot museum (in a storefront at the Twin City Town Center), was only supposed to be open for six months. Instead, it attracted three times more attendees than expected. They kept it open for 11 months instead of six, and it was financially self-sustaining during that time.
“Holy cow, the interest was tremendous,” Vanasse said. “It was sad to close the pilot, but in order to focus on the new building and make it big and better, that’s what we had to do.”
They are nearing the end of a mammoth fundraising effort, and are still pursuing a few grants to get them over the finish line, after successfully meeting their goals for local private donations and state support.
McGee, a staple of the Chehalis Renaissance Committee, is now helping lead the effort to get the museum across the finish line. He said it’s more than just a fun place for kids — it’s a building block of education and support during a key moment of a person’s development.
“The single most important denominator in lifting people out of poverty is education. For me, this is a way to put a permanent mark for the better on this community,” he told The Chronicle in 2018.
Vanasse, who is treasurer of the Discover! Children’s Museum board, said people will come to her out of the blue to give money for the project.
The plan is to build the museum on land near the roundabout by Home Depot and Walmart as part of a public city park with play equipment open to all children (including play structures geared toward kids with disabilities). The goal is to open the museum by 2021, or perhaps even 2020.
After a dozen years of work on this project, and with further still to go, has it been worth it?
“We are super excited,” Vanasse said. “It’s been a long haul, but every minute has been worth it.”
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Brian Mittge took his kids to the opening of the temporary Discover! Children’s Museum in 2013, and is looking forward to taking them again to the new permanent location soon. Drop Mittge a line at brianmittge@hotmail.com.
