For the kids

As Dana Leslie imagines it, the Chico Children’s Museum would look like something her daughter, Charlie, or any imaginative 6-year-old might dream up: a colorful, miniature city beneath the boughs of a gigantic climbing tree populated by pint-size future professionals playing at their possible trades.

For the past year, Leslie and several like-minded citizens—the would-be museum’s board of directors—have been working quietly to make her vision a reality. They have maintained a website and social media presence for several months, but announced intentions to open the museum on the 300 block of Main Street (in the long-vacant space once occupied by The Underground) publicly at the Thursday Night Market on July 16. Their hope is the community is supportive enough to help raise the necessary funds—which Leslie estimated at about $400,000—for a projected opening in 2016.

Leslie is a native of Austin, Texas, who moved to Chico two years ago; in her hometown, she worked as a real estate agent, but became better known for her charity work with nonprofit groups such as The Austin Shelter for Women and Children and Austin Pets Alive, when her social work and parenting style prompted a friend to nominate her for a contest called Unstoppable Moms. She was one of 32 semifinalists featured on ABC’s Live with Kelly & Michael, which also landed her and her daughter in a national magazine ad for the contest’s sponsor, Motrin.

“Chico is really cool. It’s a lot like Austin because it has a similar eclectic, funky vibe,” Leslie said during an interview also attended by museum board member Ashley DeKellis. “It’s the kind of place you come for a weekend and you want to come back to and stay, which is exactly what I did.”

Leslie’s initial visit to the North State was to see her cousin, Alexa Benson-Valavanis, president and CEO of North Valley Community Foundation.

“I knew that if I came here I could take some time, work with [Benson-Valavanis] and figure out how I could make a difference in this community,” Leslie said. “I wanted to start something that really felt good, and that I could be with for the long haul.”

She eventually landed on the museum project, and said working with the NVCF has helped a lot, noting the nearest other such museum—in Sonoma—took a decade to get off the ground. She and Charlie spent a lot of time at a children’s museum in Austin for organized birthday parties and gatherings, and more random visits. “It was a fun place to go spend time together and get out of the heat.”

There are more than 350 children’s museums around the world. Most are members of the Association of Children’s Museums, which holds annual conferences, provides professional support and helps them connect to sellers of traveling and permanent exhibits. Leslie was quick to note that the Chico museum would be completely unique, and feature a mix of prefabricated and locally made exhibits. Board members are reaching out to local artists, designers, builders and various departments at Chico State to tap for talent and involve in the museum’s mission.

Leslie said that mission differs from other local museums—like the Gateway Science Museum and Chico Creek Nature Center—because it involves a more hands-on, play-oriented experience.

“[Traditional] museums are quieter and help children learn on a different level,” Leslie said. “It takes a certain kind of brain and state of mind to go there and absorb the information.”

The children’s museum would instead focus on real-world professions, play and hands-on interaction. Child visitors would step into the roles of working professionals, complete with costumes and high-tech toys. She used a veterinarian’s office as an example.

“They’d walk in, decide if they wanted to be a doctor or a nurse, put on scrubs, a mask and gloves, and then use play equipment to simulate what they might do as a working vet,” she said. The animal patients even have working electronic heartbeats.

The museum would be Chico-centric in some ways, with exhibits focusing on the area’s agricultural surroundings and other unique aspects of local culture.

“Rather than have a grocery store, our store might be more set up like a farmers’ market,” Leslie said.

Board members have had positive meetings with the Boys and Girls Club of the North Valley, Chico Creek Nature Center and others, Leslie said. Organizers plan to use the visibility of the museum’s downtown location to help advertise and support other organizations, and to develop exhibits and programs to supplement and support the resources offered at like-minded organizations.

The group’s next step is fundraising, and Leslie said they’ve already gotten pledges for donations and exhibit sponsorships. DeKellis is the group’s fundraising coordinator, and though no solid plans have been made yet, she said she has several “outside-of-the-box” fundraising ideas in the works.

Leslie said the building’s owner, Alan Tochterman, has been supportive of the effort thus far. All monies raised will go directly to the building’s interior and operating costs, and once opened the museum will have its own source of revenue. The group is in the process of establishing a nonprofit status.

Since the museum group’s public announcement, much ado has been made over its proposed location on a “bar-heavy downtown block,” as the Chico Enterprise-Record highlighted in a recent headline.

“Forty-five percent of the museums that are part of the Association of Children’s Museums are in downtown areas,” Leslie said. “Many have grown into areas some people wouldn’t want to expand into, but when they move into these overlooked areas people start looking. Museums like this get other people curious and involved in something positive, and that tends to have had a snowball effect.”

Leslie believes the museum could be a major contributor to Chico’s downtown revitalization efforts: “Our board has spent hours and hours on that block; sometimes we’ll count how many children walk by with their parents. On average, eight children might walk by in one hour on a Tuesday afternoon, so imagine if the children’s museum is there so they have a place to go on that block.

“We certainly have the best interests of all the businesses there in mind,” she continued. “We’re not trying to run anyone off, but we want to help clean it up and make the entire block something people can be proud of.”