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Services and Facilities Enhancement Project

Fort Walla Walla Museum
Carrying the Past into the Future

Keeping the distinctiveness of a changing community is accomplished by preserving its heritage.
Keeping it safe for future generations is everyone's duty.

Educational Benefits

Heritage is the thread that binds the fabric of a community together, a shared experience providing a foundation on which to build for the future. By connecting children with their heritage, great things happen. Children gain a sense of place and belonging in their community and in the process their self-esteem grows. Heritage education helps children become fully integrated, productive members of society. Fort Walla Walla Museum supports the educational process and inspires children to learn more about their heritage.

Walla Walla's Edison School visits the Museum.

Learning takes place on many levels in the life of a child. Schools perform exceptional work in many areas, but the difficulty of making history come alive for students can be both costly and logistically daunting. A school trip to Fort Walla Walla Museum can be particularly useful in supporting classroom-based assessments (CBA). Children can see and touch aspects of the past that books and lectures cannot address. Utilizing the Museum’s free Teacher’s Guide, teachers may prepare students for a visit and find activities in multiple disciplines for follow-up learning.

A 2008 state education requirement mandates that students complete a project using primary documents, photographs, and artifacts. History museums are essential partners in accomplishing this and other CBA goals. Further, Museum Docents provide children an adult role model as active senior citizens who are both knowledgeable and passionate about their volunteer work. School visits to the Museum are sponsored by several generous sources, so that such trips come without admission expense to either schools or students.

The admission-free School Tour Program has averaged more than 5,000 participants annually over the past six seasons. Through ongoing surveys of visiting students, the Museum has learned that 86% had never visited a museum before. Further, 82% want to return with their families. An additional 2,500 children who attend with their families will also benefit from enhanced hands-on learning stations throughout the Museum.

Docent Vi Jones & teacher Tamar Lundsen with Othello, WA's Hiawatha School students. Lundsen describes her annual class visits as "definitely worthwhile."

Fort Walla Walla Museum seeks as many as six interactions with each student before high school graduation. An enhanced Museum Education Program will:

• Offer an Orientation Theater providing a summary of Northwest history
• Create a Children’s’ Discovery Center
• Provide hands-on stations for children throughout the Museum
• Develop historically-themed play areas
• Facilitate further collaboration with area high schools, colleges, and universities through
• Intern opportunities
• Research opportunities
• Independent studies
• Volunteer opportunities
• Graduate student projects
• Development of more Kids’ Camps and a facility for Education Workshops utilizing Museum assets and offering classes in traditional crafts, regional history, and research techniques.
• An Education Coordinator to supervise both internal programs and outreach activities.
  

A ‘Kid’s Museum’ will be interwoven within the larger Museum. Children who can connect with the region’s past will feel a sense of belonging to their communities, develop healthy self-esteem, and become involved in something greater than themselves. Engaging, interactive, fun, and seamlessly educational hands-on stations children identify by spotting “Maury the Mule,” a friendly, cartoon graphic clad in overalls, red 'long-handles,' and straw hat signaling where children can get involved with the past.

"Farmer Maury"

In the parade grounds behind the Entrance building, a children’s play area modeled after an early 19th century fur trade fort will offer children an energy release through safe climbing and recreation. It’s ‘kids only’ size will be apparent with its small-scale doorway. This proposed 400-square feet of space features a vertical log palisade with blockhouses at each corner. Children can explore interactive stations and travel the upper walkway in this miniaturized fort.

Children's play area rendering

Learn more about the benefits of campus completion, economic benefits, or return to the main Services and Facilities Enhancement Project page.

See what others are saying.

See our future here.

You can help. Donate using DONATE NOW JustGive.org. Be sure to designate your preference for the Services and Facilities Enhancement Project. Undesignated donations are placed in the General Fund.

If you prefer not to donate online, consider downloading a gift form.
Mail your check and the gift form to:
           Fort Walla Walla Museum
           755 Myra Road
           Walla Walla, WA 99362

The Capital Campaign for the Services and Facilities Enhancement Project is coordinated by Fort Walla Walla Museum Board members Tony Wenham and Jill Zagelow. The Capital Campaign Steering Committee includes Larry Beaulaurier, Maita Kibler, Pete Reid, Sonia Schmitt, and Fort Walla Walla Museum Board Treasurer Barbara Stubblefield.

For more information, contact the Museum at (509) 525-7703
or email to info@fortwallawallamuseum.org.