It will be a couple of years before young Bronxites and kids from surrounding areas get to visit the Bronx Children’s Museum. Until then, the museum will visit them on wheels.
Museum officials have snagged a colorful school bus to serve as a mobile children’s museum while the permanent site is under construction.
“It’s a wonderful way to not only get to know our community but to entice them and excite them about the programs and exhibits we’re going to have,” said Executive Director Carla Precht. “It’s like we’re opening our doors before we have a site.”
The bus will make its official debut at the Bronx Day Parade on May 22.
Bronx is home to 250,000 children under age 9 and is the only borough without a children’s museum at present.
Set to open its doors in 2013, the Bronx Children’s Museum will be headquartered in Building J at Mill Pond Park near Yankee Stadium.
Each month, the mobile museum will bring exhibits and hands-on programs to schools, community organizations, parks and homeless shelters – even to family day-care programs.
The traveling exhibits and programs are being funded by CITGO’s Simón Bolívar Foundation.
“This bus has so much character; its presence is so perfect. I could see it traveling around the Bronx,” Precht said.
The bus was donated by the parents of Sarah Malawista, a young artist from Potomac, MD., who, while still in high school, had the idea of founding an “art bus” for inner-city kids.
More about the museum could be found here; more about CITGO’s Simón Bolívar Foundation’s support for the Bronx could be found here.
