Visit us on For more information: E: info@cmosc.org T: 707-546-4069 Send regular mail to: P.O. Box 12323 Santa Rosa, CA 95406
Museum Musings
This Blog is written by Collette Michaud, CEO and a Founder of the Children's Museum of the Sonoma County. Please comment on the blog. We want to hear from you. Suggestions, ideas, comments are all welcome!
I'm so happy to report that the Children's Museum of Sonoma County is now encumbered! What does that mean? After a year of very hard work, lots of surveys, inspections, and deft legal work, the children's museum has obtained a city permit and CEQA exemption. And because of all this, the State Department of Parks and Recreation has now entitled us to the rest of the grant money ($1,800,000) we were awarded for Mary's Garden. We are so excited and thank grateful to everyone who helped make this important day happen! Behind me is the Childrnen's Museum Board and Staff. From left to right: Theresa Giacomino, Douglas Kay, Brete Harrison, Bert Bangsberg, Jason Glazier, Collette Michaud, Mark Dolan, Ashle Crocker, Matt Williams, Diane Zimmerman, Eleanor Gorman and Julio Cacers
I'm excited to let everyone know that PG&E has generously donated $100,000 to CMOSC! I am so grateful and excited to have PG&E as a partner in the creation of a children's museum for Sonoma County!
I found out last week that the Children's Museum of Sonoma County was named "Best Imagination Center" by the readers of the NorthBay Bohemian for the second year in a row! Thank you to all the Boho readers for your support and encouragement. And tank you to the CMOSC staff for all the hard work and love that they put into making CMOSC so WONDERful!
Be sure and pick up a copy of the Boho's "Best Of" issue coming out in April!
Matt Villano, Healdsburg resident, father, and writer for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote a great article about tomorrow's "Medical Mysteries" event. This is our third Lawrence Hall of Science Festival at the site - all of which have been fabulously attended.
Last December 1, 2012, after an extensive RFP process, we hired XS|LA Land Design to develop Mary's Garden. For the past two months, they have worked hard with input from our Site Committee to create a beautiful new site plan. Check out the new site plan and elevations here! And please let us know what you think.
The CMOSC was awarded $1.8M from the State Office of Grants and Local Services to develop a nature education facility at our new site on W. Steele Lane called "Mary's Garden!"
More than 300 applications were submitted as part of Proposition 84's (2006) Nature Education Facilities Program, requesting almost $1 billion in total funding. The $1.8M will transform the front outdoor space of the children's museum into "Mary's Garden", an outdoor wonderland with a butterfly metamorphosis theme, water play area, native habitat garden and other features to connect children with nature. The CMOSC would like to thank the current Board of Directors, staff and consultants who helped design the garden and nature programs and worked on the grant preparations.
On December 18, 2010, we held the first Exhibit Design Workshop with children ages 4 - 12. It was a spectacular success with 33 children participating in the workshop.
We divided the children into three groups. Each group was led by a facilitator and a sketch artist, who drew like mad trying to keep up with all the ideas the kids were coming up with.
Afterward, the kids played with our mobile exhibits in the new space. It was very exciting to see so many kids in our new home.
If you'd like to see the wonderful ideas the kids came up with click here. Many of the kids signed their names next to the ideas that they came up with. Please comment on any designs you especially like.
A special thanks to our fabulous facilitators, Linda Herman, Amanda Kirk, and Theresa Giacomino. And another huge thanks to our talented sketch artists, Brian Fee, Steve Purcell and Brian Scharf. And last, but not least, a ton of thanks to the mastermind of the event, Robin Stephani.
The event was made possible by Wright Contracting, which provided all the yummy snacks and supplies for the day.
And last of all, thank you to all the children who participated in the event! It was a terrific success!
If you're interested in having your child participate in the next exhibit workshop, please email us at info@cmosc.org with the subject line "Exhibit Workshop for Children".
Last Thursday, December 16, 2010, we signed the lease for our new home! The day before, eight volunteers from Medtronic volunteered a day of their time to help us start getting the site fixed up. They helped with general clean up, yard work and painting. And they did it with a smile on their faces!
We are so grateful to both MEDTRONIC and their wonderful employees and also to FRIEDMAN'S Home Improvement Store for donating most of the supplies to get us up and running.
We are so excited about our new home as well as the wonderful response we've been receiving from businesses and donors about the future children's museum!
In photo: Jennifer Pearlmutter, Erik Kunz, Linda Gibboney, Patrick Anderson, Susan Wayshak, Karen Gunderson, Kevin Mauch, and Maria Arreguin.
bring the magic of science, art and nature to all of Sonoma County. Now we can double our participation in public and school events from 24 to 60 events per year! Wow!!! We would like to thank all of our generous donors for helping make this possible!
