The McMinnville Children’s Museum is planning to establish a permanent home at the former Powermatic Factory site to create a new center focused on science, technology, engineering, art and math.
McMinnville Children’s Museum President and Founder Lindsay Powell said the organization is currently under a 24-month contract with the McGee family to raise the necessary funds to purchase the five-acre property on Morrison Street. Powell said the non-profit must secure every dollar for the building endowment and future programming through donors and community fundraisers.
“We’re a very new and a very young non-profit, and with anything, I mean, we have to raise every single dollar that we have for programming and for our building endowment,” Powell said. “So with that, we can’t apply for funds or attract donors until we have a location, but we can’t buy a location without funds.”
Powell said the McGee family approached the organization to offer the location because they wanted the site to serve as the future home of the museum. Powell said the 24-month agreement provides the all-volunteer staff the time required to fundraise while continuing to manage existing community workshops. Powell said she is confident the nonprofit can raise the funds necessary to cover their new home.
“We’re looking for donors, we have fundraisers coming down the pipeline, all while balancing our programming,” Powell said. “So it’s a lot to do, but we are taking it all very one intentional step at a time.”
The proposed facility will serve as an education center designed for children of all ages to engage in educational play. Powell said the museum aims to remove barriers to accessibility for families in Warren County who currently have to travel up to two hours to reach similar facilities in other cities.
“Living here in Warren County, to go to anything of this sort, you have to travel at least an hour, if not an hour and a half, two hours, you know, all the way to four hours for going down to Memphis,” Powell said. “None of that’s accessible, right? So if we can bring it here to our doorstep, we’re taking one barrier for accessibility away.”
Powell said the organization currently operates out of her home and utilizes public spaces like the Magness Library and Rock Island State Park for summer workshops. Powell said a physical building will allow the nonprofit to house permanent interactive exhibits that help children develop fine motor skills and critical thinking.
“I wish I had had this whenever I was a child growing up in McMinnville,” Powell said. “I just know that it can quickly turn into an inspiration for children in learning about their world around them, learning about science and engineering without learning it through a textbook.”
Powell said the project has been in development for four years and is intended to be a community-driven effort that incorporates ideas from local residents. Powell said the center will provide an inspiration for children to learn about the world around them through hands-on experience.
“We have a lot of children here in the community who just don’t have any access to the arts and this could change that completely for them,” Powell said. “It still hasn’t completely sunk in that someone’s willing to wait for us to have this funds and that, you know, they’re basically joining us in partnership saying like, ‘We have this and we want you to have it too, so let’s work together and figure out a way for the McMinnville Children’s Museum to own it ourselves.'”
The museum plans to continue offering no-cost programming through the summer while working toward the property purchase. Powell said the non-profit will offer affordable annual memberships to the new learning center once it is constructed.
“We’re going to have lots of options for families, whether they want to get a yearly membership, whether they want to just come for the day,” Powell said. “We’ll also most likely have one day a year where we just open the doors up and it’s just come and play for free, just come hang out with us.”
