The Children’s Museum of Brownsville invites the community to be part of its newest traveling exhibit “Curious George: Let’s get Curious” as they celebrate the expansion of the facility and are ready to welcome thousands of visitors.
The exhibit, is part of a long series of activities that were up and coming before the museum closed down for the pandemic. “Curious George: Let’s get Curious,” is housed inside the Ringgold Civic Pavilion, which was an event center for parties, quinceañeras and more.
Felipe Peña, executive director at the Children’s Museum of Brownsville, said the addition of the new building to the museum has allowed them to kind of spread their wings a little bit and have enough room to do the things that they need to do for the community and not be locked into a really tight space. Before the pandemic, the museum served about 60,000 visitors a year.
“We wanted to have something new and exciting for the first phase of this edition and the board approved the rental of Curious George,” Peña said.
“And Curious George is a traveling show. It has been all around the country and we thought ‘Let’s kick it off with something exciting, something that people will enjoy and really experience for the first time in Brownsville, the rest of the Valley and all of South Texas.’ Curious George is still in the range of kiddos that we traditionally serve, 0 to 8 years old. And, it is designed in a way that the child is going through an adventure in the town of Curious George.”
The exhibit allows visitors to have different experiences that are fun and exciting for kids, and even adults, such as visiting a market and explore the different types of food, shop and check customers out; a history section where they will get to learn about the the development of Curious George and see all the history of the books that were created, the animation of the characters and really what the authors were going through in their life as they were developing the story; a construction zone where they will get to be in an imaginative world of moving blocks and learn how that looks and feels and explore inside the apartment where George lives while at the same time using different lights and shadows to build scenes and characters.
“I would like to tell the community to please come back and visit the Children’s Museum. The other aspect of this, as we were transitioning from being semi-closed to opening completely was the fact that we were going to gain so much space. To give customers the opportunity to feel comfortable because you get to be a little more distanced from the people that are at the museum as well,” Peña said.
“We invite the community to come back out, visit us, enjoy the spaces and take advantages of this once in a sort of lifetime opportunity. Because we don’t get shows all the time, we don’t always get a traveling exhibit and this will be here for a little while and then it will go away. So, they need to come out and take advantage of that. Have the kids enjoy the space that’s really for them.”
Peña said the growth of the museum will allow them to take it to the next level in terms of the type of exhibits that they have and developing exhibits that will not only live forever in this space, but also in the plaza in between both buildings to be able to connect the spaces.
He said he would like for people to attend the Children’s Museum and have one large museum to visit such as bigger cities do where attendees are able to explore exhibits for the whole day, eat together and have the whole family entertained.
“My end goal is to try and develop this space into something that every family that comes here, leaves with a really good impression and great memories for their books, scrapbooks, their social media and all these great things,” he said.
The exhibit will run until September and the price of admission is $9. There are also yearly memberships available that start at $150.
For more information, visit cmofbrownsville.org or call them at (956) 548-9300.
