Foundation, museum to share resources

Partnership with National Children's Museum is expected to strengthen Accokeek nonprofit's programs

‘‘The intention is that this is going to be an ongoing partnership, particularly now that the National Children’s Museum doesn’t have their building yet,” said Julie Brunton, Accokeek Foundation’s outreach coordinator.

‘‘Since we’re right down the road from National Harbor, this gives them space and opportunity to have their expertise be part of what we offer,” she said. ‘‘What the Children’s Museum brings to the table is that they have so much experience. They’re a leader in their field of children’s education.”

The National Children’s Museum is an outgrowth of the Capital Children’s Museum, which closed in 2004. It is scheduled to open a 150,000-square-foot facility at National Harbor in 2012 that is expected to attract 500,000 visitors in its first year of operation, the majority of them coming from the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region.

But in the meantime, the museum is using its partnerships with the Accokeek Foundation and other area organizations to maintain links with the community, said Ariel Moyer, the National Children’s Museum’s director of communications.

In Prince George’s County, the museum offers programs largely through public entities, including the school system, the public libraries and the parks and recreation department.

Such partnerships are ‘‘a great way for us to get on the ground now while we are in the interim and building the new museum,” she said.

The Accokeek Foundation is the only county group with environmentalism as a primary emphasis that the museum has collaborated with so far, Moyer said.

‘‘Accokeek is a great fit because part of what we want to focus on is the environment,” she said.

Museum staff members, who are in the process of designing the exhibits and programs that will be available when the museum opens, want to make environmental consciousness a key part of their offering, Moyer said.

While details of what each organization hopes to do in the future through this partnership are still up in the air, Moyer said the museum could use the Accokeek Foundation as a venue for trying out programs it hopes to eventually offer at its own site, especially those focusing on nature.

So far, the two organizations have collaborated on two children’s programs at the Accokeek Foundation, one that was offered in April and one that is being offered in early July.

Brunton said that National Children’s Museum staff helped make both programs more interactive and dynamic for kids who participated by including elements of theater.

This July’s program is a week-long workshop that will simulate what life was like for the children of colonial tobacco planters. Toward the end of the week, participating children will immerse themselves in colonial life by taking on historical personas and pretending they lived in those times, which Brunton said was an idea that the National Children’s Museum brought to the table.

‘‘It’s one of those things where, if we didn’t have the collaboration, we might not have taken it to that point,” she said.

E-mail Andy Zieminski atazieminski@gazette.net.