Coming together for play

COMING TOGETHER FOR PLAY AT SITKA CHILDREN’S MUSEUM

BY HEATHER MURPHY

For the Capital City Weekly

One rainy weekday morning last winter, a hesitant dad led his preschool-age daughter through the door of the Sitka Children’s Museum for the first time. As rain drummed on the windows that stretch to the high ceiling, the dad entered a world of imaginary play where his daughter was instantly engaged and connected. She chatted with him over tea in the kitchen and they drove the car together to the grocery store.

“He played whatever she wanted to play,” Sitka Children’s Museum founder Jeanette Farah said. “At that moment, I knew this was so worth it. To see their interaction was really good.”

Farah had an idea she hoped would gather community around the idea of play. When her now 11 and 7-year-old children were younger, she valued her local children’s museum in Connecticut. Unlike most museums, children’s museums are hands-on places made for kids to explore and learn through play and interaction. The children’s museum was a place her children loved to visit, and Jeanette and her friends loved to meet.

“Parents are pretty engaged in what their kids are doing in Sitka,” she said. “I thought something like a children’s museum would fit here.”

With the support of Roger Schmidt, Executive Director of the Sitka Fine Arts Camp (SFAC), Farah was loaned a seasonal space for the museum and the freedom to run with her idea. With an empty room, no budget and her creative spirit, Farah started to work.

“The first weekend, I hit the garage sales,” she said. “I went into the attics of the SFAC shop and the Yaw Building. I found stuff they didn’t even know they had, like old maps and mirrors. It was like treasure hunting.”

She sought out old-fashioned items with a vintage, pretty look to fill the space with a variety of themed areas of play. While larger children’s museums boast complex science experiments or electronic interactive displays, Farah knew she didn’t have the money or the space for those features. Instead, she centered her vision around imaginary play with European sensibility, hoping to create a clean and beautiful space where kids could let their imagination roam freely.

“The big moment was when one of the maintenance guys brought me the mailbox,” she said. “Before I’m sure they wondered why I was in the attic looking for old stuff. All of a sudden he said I have this, can you use this?”

The old college multi-section mailbox fit the theme perfectly and now forms the centerpiece of the post office area, a place where kids can write and address letters, stamp and deliver their correspondence. Jeanette sought out other donations to round out the main features of the museum.

At an Ocean Wave Quilters Guild meeting, Farah presented a wish list of hand made items she hoped to source, including a quilt for the patient’s bed in the doctor’s office, Band-Aids for the vet and carrots for the farm. The quilt guild ladies embraced the challenge and proceeded to sew every item on the list and donate them to the museum. One Sitka dad built the ramp for racecars. Another hung awnings and shelves. Several businesses in town donated carpets, toys and other supplies.

When Farah needed a new fixture for the museum this year, another volunteer, Matt Turner, stepped in and designed and built a fishing boat for the kids to climb in, over and around.

“This is Sitka at its best,” Farah said. “Improvising with many people helping out.”

From January through April last winter, the museum hosted over 700 visitors during normal business hours, with birthday parties and preschool and kindergarten classes visiting at other times as well.

“The Children’s Museum brings so many people to campus,” SFAC Program Director Kenley Jackson said. She said it fills a need to provide more rich, high-quality learning experiences for younger kids, especially on dark and rainy Sitka days.

Melissa Yelvington, a mom of three children in the museum’s target age group of kindergarten and younger, has become a regular museum visitor. She says her kids really like imaginary play and enjoy meeting friends at the space.

“Especially in winter, it’s nice to have another option for quality, indoor activity,” Yelvington said. Her daughter Madeleine, age 5, added, “I like the kitchen and dress up.” Her eyes glittered when she said, “And the car. Because I can drive it!”

The museum, one of only three children’s museums in the state, embodies SFAC’s mission to build community through the arts by bringing the best resources to kids in a nurturing environment. And Farah, Jackson said, “is a special flavor who is fostering a real connection between families who come to play.”

After watching the kids play last winter, Farah knew there needed to be a few changes this year. The dress up area needed to expand and she wanted to add the boat as the main feature of the space. The farm, she decided, could occupy a smaller area.

“Kids here don’t know how to play with the farm. They can tell you all about the boat, but no idea what to do with a tractor,” she said with a laugh. “Why are pigs in the stall? No idea.”

As a child growing up in Zurich, Switzerland, Farah was much more familiar with livestock than with fish. But much like the kids of Sitka, Farah grew up with the mountains as her backdrop and creativity as a way of life.

“Crafting is just something we do,” she said about her family life in Switzerland.

After working as an au pair in Chicago, Farah met her husband Ken and they began to move more frequently for his career. She worked in a variety of customer service jobs including as a flight attendant and concierge at a major city hotel. The moves brought out her childhood creativity as she sought to make each new house a home for her family.

“You have ideas and just make it work,” Farah said. “Then you meet people who inspire you and you want to try their craft too. That’s why I love Sitka so much because there are so many creative people here and I’m inspired.”

As the museum enters its second year, Farah is excited to see how it grows. She has many ideas to keep the space warm and inviting. She would love to incorporate activities for older kids, have more special events like sleepovers or sing-alongs, and eventually be able to sustain a year-round space.

For now, she is simply constrained by her space and budget. But with volunteers manning the desk this year and more requests for information, momentum is building and she hope Sitka embraces the museum as a valuable resource for young Sitka families and visitors alike.

“There are still a lot of kids that want or need to play,” she said. “I hope it’s also a place for the community — grandparents, parents — where they feel comfortable.”

The Sitka Children’s Museum is open Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m. noon and Saturday 10 a.m.-2 p.m. The museum is in the Yaw Building on the Sheldon Jackson Campus. Admission is $5 per family (including sales tax). More information is available on the museum Facebook page.