Children’s Museum celebrates a unique 3-way partnership involving Zerofootprint and acts as a role model by having the event “offset”

Kitchener, ON – The Waterloo Regional Children’s Museum is celebrating its founders, supporters and members on September 30 with a special formal ceremony, hosted by Museum Board and Staff, beginning at 9am with a light breakfast and a formal report. At 10 a.m. the Museum opens to the public with a series of special workshops to celebrate back-to-school.

The event is the first step in the Museum’s development of a new plan to meet its original vision. The plan is based on a re-commitment to the collaborative spirit demonstrated by the many partnerships that have been part of its foundation since day one. It’s also based on a determination to make each new development in the short term a step toward the longer-term vision. The new partnership that will be announced and explained on the 30th, involves rare Charitable Research Reserve, in Blair, the new headquarters of Zerofootprint Waterloo Region. “What rare is doing for the environment in our community is a real life example of what we are demonstrating to children and their families in the Museum,” says Jill Snider, Curricular Advisory Team, Waterloo Regional Children’s Museum. “Our Kids Inspiring Change – Energy Awareness and Conservation program – has been endorsed by both school boards and will run as a pilot program, starting this winter. Kids are agents of transformation and they are keen to protect and improve their environment.”

The Museum is also acting as a role model for kids and the community. The CO2 emissions resulting from the travel of attendees on the 30th, the electricity used during the event and the energy used in the production of the event materials will be mitigated through carbon offsetting. The event is also natural resource responsible: the trees and water used to produce event materials will be restored to the environment through tree planting and watershed protection. These offsets will be carried out by rare Charitable Research Reserve, helping to clean the air and water for all of the Region’s residents.

The partnership of the Children’s Museum, rare Charitable Research Reserve and Zerofootprint will also be soliciting feedback from Museum-goers and Founders on the 30th. It will discuss the next stages of its plans, which include retrofitting the building to become a green exhibit itself and developing a “footprint” calculator that will allow kids to calculate the impact of their daily activities on the environment, as well as suggest ways to reduce these costs to our earth.

At 10am, the Museum will open to the public with a special back-to-school celebration. A series of workshops, called the Art of Language, will allow visitors to make connections among a variety of symbol-using activities, including Drumming – the Language of our Ancestors; Diamonds & Gems Jewellery – A Language of its Own; Little Hands Talking –Sign Language; Hieroglyphics; Cody/Binary Matrix and Techno-Poetry.

The Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10am to 5pm and Noon to 5pm on Sundays. Admission is $7 and children under 3 always get in free. Parking is available immediately behind the museum in the Duke Street parking garage.

For further information, visit the museum website at www.wrcm.ca or contact Visitor Services at 519-749-9387×239.

Contacts

Victoria Bugdal, Marketing Coordinator, 519-749-9387 ext. 230, victoriab@wrcm.ca

Deborah Kaplan, Executive Director of Zerofootprint, 416-365-7557, deborah.kaplan@zerofootprint.net