AARP has awarded a $20,000 Community Challenge Grant to the Delaware Children’s Museum (DCM) in Wilmington.
“It is a grant that AARP awards to various service organizations throughout the country to help with charity and community service in many different aspects,” said Joe Valenti, the marketing manager for the Riverfront Development Corporation (RDC).
He says the Children’s Museum was forced to close on March 13, 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and it will remain closed for the foreseeable future; he notes because of the closure the Museum has had to shift its focus to online content.
“This focus specifically is to create some programming that we’re going to be using to put out to our social media and to our email and to our website and our member database for connecting grandparents and their grandchildren,” Valenti said.
Valenti says the Museum will begin providing the online resources and activities - for free - starting September 6, 2020.
He notes a portion of the grant will be used to provide “You’re Grand” activity bags that grandparents and their grandchildren can use at home; the bags will include hands-on activities that can recreate many STEM activities usually done at the Children’s Museum.
Valenti says the activity bags will also include books grandparents can read to their grandchildren over the phone or through video chat.
The bags will be provided by Museum staff within the local community, both by drop-off and through curbside pickup outside the Museum.
Valenti says the best way for grandparents and grandchildren to get involved is to follow the DCM on Facebook, Instagram or at the Museum’s website.
