Kidscommons Expansion and Endowment

FAIN: CH-50174-05

Kidscommons...Columbus Community Children's Museum (Columbus, IN 47201)
Cheryl A. Buffo (Project Director: May 2004 to November 2008)

Renovation of exhibition and program space and endowment for humanities programming.

Kidscommons, the Columbus (IN) Community Children's Museum, requests a grant of $350,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Challenge Grant Program to create 1) a new, significantly larger space for humanities exhibitions and programs, and 2) to sustain them through the creation of a humanities endowment. This grant and its corresponding match would create: $1 million humanities endowment and new humanities-dedicated exhibition/program space. The grant monies, together with the $1.050 million in matching funds, represents 35% of the total expansion and endowment campaign of $4 million. The expanded humanities program will draw on Columbus' internationally renowned public architecture, art and design to deliberately consider the Columbus experience and history of the built environment, community and citizenship. The built environment offers an outstanding vehicle to help children and their accompanying adults learn local history, develop exceptional critical thinking skills, consider the role of the built environment as a keystone for preserving history, and explore the roles and responsibilities of individuals in the continual crafting and re-crafting of community.