Launched in the winter of 2011, the CCC is a group of 15 youth and adult advocates with strong ties to youth and families in our target age range. “We are forming the Creative Community Council – a group of community leaders who will co-create a meaningful and sustainable platform for outreach and engagement.” – Audrey Yamamoto, Executive Director. To help develop community outreach and engagement strategies that will be meaningful and lasting, we are choosing to focus on assets rather than needs.
We know that for many families challenges around finances, leisure time, linguistic and cultural norms, and legal status present a barrier to access.
We know it takes more than simply offering fee-waived family memberships for families from low-income neighborhoods. We know it takes more than an active commitment to involving community artists, innovators, and youth in the co-creation of our programs and exhibits. Over the years there have been numerous concerted efforts by individual staff and passionate community partners, but there has never been a systematic approach to community outreach and engagement. In the aftermath of the storm families came together to share food, resources, and basic necessities, activities which radically strayed from the LCM’s mission of “promoting hands-on participatory learning for children of all ages.” This made me wonder: what is the role of a children’s museum in the lives of the families it serves? Natural disaster or not, what is our responsibility? To whom? And to what end?įor the CCM, being a “community resource” is one of the top priorities in our Strategic Plan, but we’ve always struggled to articulate exactly what that means. When I first began at the museum in 2008 my supervisor and mentor shared a story about the Louisiana Children’s Museum’s response to Hurricane Katrina.