OWL On Target to Open in Summer 2011

		Media Contacts Primary: Ruth Cavins, Executive Director Phone: 405.533.3333 Secondary: Lynda Halley, PR & Marketing Committee Phone: 405.747.5752
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, March 6, 2011		PDF: Click here to download

Oklahoma WONDERtorium On Target to Open in Summer 2011
Children’s museum enlists community to push campaign over the top

STILLWATER, OK (March 6, 2011) – “We are so close to fulfilling our 10-plus year dream of opening to the public, we can hardly sleep,” said Ruth Cavins, Executive Director of the Oklahoma WONDERtorium, in recent comments. “As of today, we are more than halfway to our capital campaign goal of $900,000 which will allow the Oklahoma WONDERtorium to open at 308 W. Franklin, in Stillwater, this summer. To date, we have raised $467,308 in donations and grants that will allow the renovation of the 10,000 square foot space, the fabrication and installation of fourteen (14) exciting exhibits and most importantly, provide operational sustainability for three years,” continues Cavins. “That last point, financial sustainability, is very important to us. We have set this goal to ensure three years of guaranteed operation before we even open.”

The Oklahoma WONDERtorium Exhibits
The Oklahoma WONDERtorium is a children’s museum. Children’s museums provide exhibits and programs to stimulate informal learning experiences for all who attend through hands-on, interactive activities. Children’s museums are playscapes for children who interact with other children and grown-ups. Simultaneously, children’s museums bring out the child in most adults who re-experience unstructured play, exploration and comaraderie with their children.

Several examples of the fourteen exhibits planned for the museum include play pods (small individualized play stations); large-scale exhibits like “A-Mazing Airways,” a floor-to-ceiling maze of transparent tubes that carry colorful, windborne scarves and balls on a circuitous and entertaining route; and “Little Wonders,” a separate play area with soft play climbing structures and sensory activities for little visitors from birth to 3 years. Other large-scale exhibits include “Imagination Playground,” a set of large foam blocks that allow children to play at an architectural scale and “Forest Playground” with a slide built into a “tree,” a hollow log to climb through, and a rock-climbing wall.

“Our building will engage lots of energetic children! It’s a fun place – a please touch place – where children are free to climb and explore and use their imaginations,” continues Cavins. Perhaps, unlike home or school, children will be encouraged to take things apart and then put them back together to make their own creation. In short, visitors will learn while playing. To see the Oklahoma WONDERtorium’s exhibit drawings and learn more about each activity, go to the website: www.okwondertorium.org.

Transitioning Museum Without Walls to one WITH walls
The Oklahoma WONDERtorium officially began non-profit operation in 2001 as the Stillwater Children’s Museum. The organization changed its name in 2009 because their ongoing outreach programming, Museum Without Walls, offers programs beyond Stillwater to north-central communities including Perkins, Cushing, Glencoe, Ripley and Yale. The WONDERtorium will continue to expand the outreach of Museum Without Walls to cities and towns in counties that surround Payne county. Expansion sites include Perry, Morrison, Cleveland, Pawnee, Drumright, Agra, Guthrie, Mulhall and Orlando.

Debbie Williams, programs coordinator for the museum, explains, “Museum Without Walls was started in 2006 to serve as a proof-of-concept program showing what a children’s museum could bring to children and families.” She continues, “We designed Museum Without Walls to be a ‘field trip taken into the classroom’ to show firsthand how a children’s museum can reinforce learning and inspire curiosity. We found an eager audience in the children and their teachers. Each of our five age-appropriate programs align with Oklahoma’s Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS), so our offerings augment and enhance grade-level curriculum. To date, we have served over 16,000 children at 58 different sites in 605 classrooms in north-central Oklahoma. Through our summer and winter camps we have served an additional 1,112 children.”

Williams continues, “All Museum Without Walls programming has been offered free of charge to schools. We have been able to provide these important programs for free thanks to the generosity of individuals, businesses and corporations and foundation grants. Due to it popular appeal, we will continue Museum Without Walls as a major component of our educational outreach even when the Oklahoma WONDERtorium opens to the public. ”

Spring plans for achieving the capital campaign goal
“To achieve our goal and open during summer 2011, we need to raise the remaining campaign goal – $432,692 – by June,” says Cavins. “We’re extremely busy trying to do just that – with lots of help from volunteers and our community.” A number of events are planned including a “MegaPlant Sale,” to be held on April 16, in downtown Stillwater as a part of the Arts and Heritage Festival. Also, the museum is being honored by students from Stillwater high school as the beneficiary of proceeds from SMAC (Stillwater Makes A Change) Week – April 11-16. SMAC Week is completely student-driven and includes a number of fundraising activities each day of that week – including a movie night at the football stadium, a lip synch contest and a battle of the bands.

“We need the public-at-large to see the value of our mission, participate in our events, and contribute,” Cavins continues. “Any donation is appreciated and is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.” Donations can be made on the Oklahoma WONDERtorium’s website through a simple form where donors can securely use a credit card. Single or recurring donations are possible and funds can be auto-deducted from bank accounts using the museum’s online form. Many of the exhibits can be funded with naming rights that allow the donor to honor or memorialize a special person, their own family, or special cause or concern. “We have been very creative in raising half our goal so far in less than five months so we encourage the public to call the museum (405-533-3333) with any creative ideas that may lead to achieving the rest of our goal,” says Cavins.

Director Cavins concludes, “One thing the community may already know about our board of directors, staff and volunteers... we do not give up easily! We’re going to achieve our dream of a children’s museum in north-central Oklahoma and it will be a regional resource benefiting all ages, our business and academic communities, and our state.”

About Oklahoma WONDERtorium
Established in 2001 and located in Stillwater, Oklahoma, the Oklahoma WONDERtorium is a children’s museum dedicated to inspiring curiosity by providing children and families with the opportunity to interact and learn through play while promoting the physical, emotional and cognitive growth of children and families of all backgrounds and cultures. Currently a “museum without walls” the WONDERtorium offers five developmentally appropriate programs for children ages birth through 12 years in Payne County elementary, preschool and childcare centers reaching thousands of children each year. The WONDERtorium is actively raising funds to open a facility at 308 W. Franklin, Stillwater, in summer of 2011. Future plans are to build a permanent home at 10th & Duck streets in Stillwater. The Oklahoma WONDERtorium is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. Business offices are located at 1601 S. Main (Head Start Building), Stillwater, Oklahoma, 74074. For more details about the museum, its programs and events, please visit http://www.okwondertorium.org. 

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