Many of the citizens of Harrisonburg have been to the Explore More Museum, and it’s definitely a town favorite around the friendly city. In fact, almost 92% of parents taking their kids say that they love it, according to a poll conducted Tuesday.
“I have four kids, and they all love different things,”Emily Herminath said. “And so it’s really nice to come here and spend some time with my littles, while my older kids do other things. There’s all sorts of things all over.”
However, many hours of hard work went into the founding of the museum. Lisa Shull, the owner and founder of the museum, started building exhibits 23 years ago, and is still adding new displays often.
The Explore More Museum (also known as the Children’s Museum), is great for children of all ages, and even adults sometimes.
“They come in and they think it’s just going to be for the kids to play, and then instead, we look around and the adults are playing with materials in the museum,” Program Director Melanie Veith said.
The museum started when Lisa and Brian Shull pulled together a group of local community members to imagine the possibility of having a children’s museum in the Harrisonburg area.
It was not the first time Lisa had seen something like this. While traveling with her husband, she saw similar establishments.
“They would be in other towns and see museums and think, why can’t we have something like this in Harrisonburg?” Veith said.
On October 14, 2003, the Harrisonburg Children’s Museum officially opened its doors at 30 N. Main Street and became a favorite downtown destination for kids throughout the Valley.
Seven years later, Lisa was thinking about packing her bags and moving the Explore More Museum down the street to its current location at 150 S Main St.
“Just getting the money to get open and to move to this space was probably the biggest challenge we face . . . we did a fundraising campaign that was led by two wonderful people, Pat and Glenda Rooney . . . It took a while, but we got the money that we needed to build the museum,” Veith said.
The Explore More Museum is still improving. Just a few months ago, the museum opened a TSA exhibit with a luggage scan and passport station.
“We added a TSA exhibit, so kids can go through the metal detector. They can pretend to X-ray their luggage. They can scan their passports, so that they’re getting that real experience of what it would really be like to go to a real airport. And then once they go through that, then they can get on the airplane and play,“ Veith said.
It’s not just the patrons that enjoy spending time in the museum. Volunteers and employees love helping children and being around all the fun.
“It’s very fun. I get to work with kids a lot. I get to see a lot of the city. It’s fun,” receptionist Peter Johnson said.
