Children’s Museum of La Crosse hopeful to reopen this summer

A timetable to reopen is still up in the air for the Children’s Museum of La Crosse. But it’s getting closer.

Executive director Anne Snow told Classic Hits 94.7 that their COVID task force — made up of people from various working backgrounds — has been meeting regularly to figure the best time to bring the kids — and parents and grandparents — back.

“They’re looking at the whole picture and I’m really hopeful that we’ll see smiling faces in here again this summer,” Snow said. “Just a really good group to kind of look at the big picture, because we are a hands-on business and because we have to be really fiscally responsible.”

The plan remains to post updates on Facebook and the website when there will be a firm reopen date.

And when that finally does happen, Snow shared that they have a new exhibit in the works on manufacturing. More info on that can be found in the museum’s E-news letter.

Snow said the museum may not have lasted the pandemic without help.

“Thank goodness for our over 20 years of generous donors, and our volunteers and our staff have really gotten us to a place where we could survive this pandemic,” she said.

While they’ve offered to extend all memberships that were frozen upon closing, Snow added that they’d love to have new members and could still use donations to help them prosper.

Part of that process for reopening the museum has been getting feedback from members.

“We did a huge member survey and we really want to be respectful of what folks out there are feeling as far as safety and concerns about COVID,” she said.

Snow said she’s on a national call, as well as a state call with other museum directors, each week trying to gauge every place’s situation.

“It is not the same with every children’s museum,” Snow said.