By Kylie Balk-Yaatenen - January 11th 2024
JANESVILLE
One of downtown’s future amenities is embracing its facility’s past in updated renderings released Wednesday.
The Children’s Museum of Rock County put out new images of its planned building at the former First National Bank, 100 W. Milwaukee St. The newly envisioned structure will incorporate the red-brick exterior of the original architecture, museum board President Claire Gray said.
The first renderings, released in March 2023, featured a glass building. The new design features large windows and space for murals.
“The mural does kind of give the building itself that vibrancy, but will also tie into downtown and the murals and art infusion that has kind of been a hallmark of the city the past decade,” she said. “The newest renderings are to create more of a seamless design with the original building."
Focus on learning
The museum’s focus will primarily be hands-on learning to engage the brains of children from infants through age 12.
“The population we’re working with is working on pre-reading skills,” Gray said. “What are prereading skills? Talking to your children, singing to your children — they need to hear words. There’s lots of studies done on early childhood brain development from 0 to 3 for the need to be stimulated.”
There also will be learning opportunities for children ages 13 — 18, according to a recent report the nonprofit group prepared.
Flexible spaces in the museum would host diverse programs to meet the needs of adolescents, the group said.
Additionally, “the great thing about this location is that we’re within walking distance of, you know, a lot of economically disadvantaged families,” board member John Westphal said. “This is about creating a level playing field when it comes to early brain development and early childhood education.”
Community support, fundraising
Gray said that she has encountered a lot of support from the city and local business owners.
She said her organization has secured its larger gifts and has launched the Everyone for the Kids Campaign, which is the public portion of the fundraising effort. She said the group so far has raised around $5.3 million.
“We’re at about a little bit less than two-thirds of our goal,” she said. “We also have a lot of grant requests. We’re looking at new market tax credits as well. Right now we’re in kind of the public community phase of our fundraising.”
She said the group is hoping to start construction sometime in late spring or early summer this year and a museum opening is planned for 2025.
Gray said that they are grateful for the support from families and foundations in the area. She is excited for the chance to make the children’s museum a reality.
“We’re really hoping that because this is a community asset that we’ll be able to, you know, have a strong community fundraising campaign because this is everybody’s museum,” she said. “This is going to be a critical asset for children and families in the community, whether they are going to patronize the museum as just visitors. Our mission is learning through play, discovering the joy of learning through play, and so it’s really important to have access to unstructured learning and playing environments.”
The Children’s Museum of Rock County started as a capstone project of the Leadership Development Academy of Rock County’s Class of 2006-07.
Children’s Museum of Rock County, Inc., became a registered nonprofit in August 2007, according to Wisconsin Department of Financial Institution online corporate records.
Efforts to bring the museum to life paused amid the 2008 financial crisis, and the organization morphed into a group of volunteers who put on events at Uptown Janesville. Now, most of the volunteers are involved in fundraising.
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