Local children’s museums press play on programmingDate: 5/10/2021 WESTERN MASS. – Two children’s museums are opening their doors and their exhibits to Western Massachusetts families once again.
Holyoke Children’s Museum
The Holyoke Children’s Museum on 444 Dwight St. closed down like many other businesses at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March of 2020. Susan Kelley, who serves as the executive director of the museum, said the experience has “been very challenging.”
She said shortly after St. Patrick’s Day in 2020, the museum closed their doors to the public and didn’t reopen them until September of 2020. However, not long after reopening their doors the region experienced another surge of positive coronavirus cases and they were once again forced to shut down operations. Kelley said they were able to reopen for business in October with “really limited” operations as “the procedures we had to do to stay open were unbelievable.” However, she said since then the museum had remained open.
Since that time, Kelley said they have been working on “slowly increasing numbers” of people allowed inside of the museum. While current state guidelines allow for the museum to operate at 50 percent capacity, she said the museum was currently operating at “about 40 percent capacity.”
While the museum was closed Kelley said they did “very little virtual programming” as they were not set up to do such programming. However, she said they had hosted an exercise where they showed how to make ice cream from snow and shared crafts which they shared on social media.
When the museum did resume operations, Kelley said they were able to bring back nearly all of their staff, and said, “The staff are incredible.” She said while the museum was operating with fewer people allowed inside, the number of staff needed was essentially the same as they needed to keep up with cleaning and sanitizing procedures.
Such procedures, Kelley explained, included everyone over the age of two being required to wear a mask while inside the museum; a decontamination room; encouraging social distancing; constant sanitizing of exhibits; only allowing one group to be at an exhibit at a time; and closing for an hour in the middle of the day to sanitize. “We close from 12 to 1 p.m., and exhibits get sprayed down with a mister,” she said, adding this also happens at the end of the day as well.
The decontamination room, she said, involves putting “dirty” or unsanitized exhibit items into bins to be sanitized where they would be switched out for clean or sanitized parts. Additionally, she said while nearly all the exhibits in the museum had reopened, one that hadn’t was their bubble table as the children would need to blow into the wands to create bubbles. Also still on hold was the museum’s sensory Sundays, which accommodate those with sensory sensitivities and free fun Friday, a program sponsored by the Highland Foundation in Boston.
However, Kelley said guests had been accommodating of guidelines when visiting the museum. “People have been so respectful,” she said, adding that it was “rewarding to see how grateful parents are” to have a place to bring their children during this time.
In slowly expanding to pre-pandemic operations, she said they had once again begun offering private birthday parties at the museum. Prior to the pandemic, she said the museum “used to have up to 12 parties in a weekend.” To start, Kelley said the museum was offering one single party slot on Sundays when the museum is closed to the general public from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.. The parties, she said, were limited to 20 children with only one adult per child.
Kelley said bringing back birthday parties “are a big step” for the museum, and they would be “keeping that until May.” At that time, Kelley said the next step for the museum would be to “bring back parties when the museum is open” and she was hoping by August they would “be able to draw a larger crowd.” At that time, she said they were hoping to be able to host entertainers again as they had in the past and that both the Merry Go Round, new playground and new splash pad would be open. “We want to be a destination for families,” she said.
Kelley said that while they’re operating at a reduced capacity they still have families coming from places such as Boston and Albany, NY, to visit the museum. However, to ensure the safety of all and that the museum was never in danger of being over occupied, families were now required to reserve their space online prior to their visit. The software, she explained, “tells you how many slots are left” for the day and when the museum is at capacity.
In September, Kelley said the museum would be celebrating its 40th anniversary. While they were “mindful of limitations” in place due to the coronavirus, she said they were hoping to host an event in the summer and host something for adults in the fall. Kelley said in addition to seeking to become a family destination, the museum also wanted to ensure families the museum was a safe, clean place to visit during this time.
The museum is open from Tuesday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 to 4 p.m., and Sunday from 12 to 4 p.m. The cost of admission for children and adults is $8 while admission for those 62 years old and older is $5 and children one-year-old and younger get into the museum for free. The museum also offers discounts for those who hold EBT cards and members of the military who are actively enlisted. Those interested in details about how to reserve a two or three hour time slot and other discounts should visit https://www.childrensmuseumholyoke.org/admission-discounts.
Amelia Park Children’s Museum
The Amelia Park Children’s Museum in Westfield, like many establishments, had to close down in March 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike many businesses, however, Amelia Park was not able to reopen its doors until November.
Executive Director Ray Radigan said that during that time Amelia Park tried to keep in touch with their regular visitors using social media to put out digital content and videos.
“I felt like that was useful, but it was a poor substitute for the real thing,” said Radigan.
When Amelia Park reopened it was in a more limited capacity than it had been before they closed. The number of visitors that can be in the building at a given time was capped per state guidelines. Rather than being continuously open all day, the open hours are split up so that they are only open for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon with one hour in between each period.
In order to visit the Amelia Park Children’s Museum, one must register in advance online, which has become standard practices for many businesses through the COVID-19 era.
“Obviously we greatly enhanced our cleaning and sanitizing processes,” said Radigan.
He said that things have been working out as well as they can be since they reopened late last year. Most of the time they have been at or near the maximum visitor capacity. His hope is that as more people get vaccinated and infection rates go down they will be able to relax some of their restrictions and invite more visitors into the museum.
Radigan said that Amelia Park was lucky to have been in relatively good financial standing before the pandemic, so the initial shutdowns did not cost them the same way it cost other businesses which have not recovered. However, not knowing how long the shutdown would last, Amelia Park applied for and received two Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and an Economic Injury Disaster Loan through the CARES Act passed by Congress last year.
The Amelia Park’s Board of Directors is also working on a direct mailing fundraiser to help keep the museum funded while they are open.
“One of the challenges that we knew logically, but now that we see it in practice it is tough, is that as difficult as being closed was, it is much more expensive to be open,” said Radigan, “Opening the doors did not solve our problems, even though it is nice to have the place full of life and energy again.”
While no specific events are scheduled at the Amelia Park Children’s Museum yet, Radigan said that some are being planned for later this year. One such event is a large Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) event to coincide with STEM Week in October. He said there are plans to bring back past events that were not able to take place last year. Typically in May, the museum would host a tea party, though Radigan said that it is not likely to happen this month.
“Maybe not in May, but hopefully we won’t have to wait another year for it,” said Radigan.
He said there has been a range from parents on when they feel comfortable bringing their children back to the museum. Some, he said, were comfortable returning as soon as it reopened, while others wanted to wait for the staff and more groups of people to be vaccinated before they returned.
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