Inside the 7th Largest Children's Museum in America: Where Play at The Children’s Museum of the Upstate Shapes Future Careers

The Children's Museum of the Upstate isn't just a place for kids - it's a $339 million economic engine for Greenville County. CEO Lauren Luneckas explains how this Smithsonian affiliate became the 7th largest children's museum in America and reveals multiple ways adults can volunteer, support, and engage with this community treasure. Discover why creating spaces truly built for children fosters better citizens and stronger communities.

Links:

• The Children's Museum of the Upstate (TCMU)

• TCMU Greenville Location

• TCMU Spartanburg Location

Transcript

Katy Smith: [0:02] Summertime is almost here, and kids and the grown-ups who love them will be looking for fun things to do. I'm Katie Smith with Greater Good Greenville, and this episode of Simple Civics Greenville County features one of the many excellent outings for any time of year, but especially the summer, the Children's Museum of the Upstate. Since 2009, the Children's Museum of the Upstate has been igniting a community of compassionate problem solvers through intentional and inclusive play. With two locations in Greenville and Spartanburg, TCMU is one of the largest children's museums in the world and was the first children's museum to be recognized as a Smithsonian affiliate. Today, you'll hear from Lauren Lunekes, president and CEO about all that TCMU has to offer. And who better to interview her than a mom who's on the lookout for summertime activities? That's our own Carrie Hutchins, who serves as Greater Good Greenville Project Manager. Be sure to listen to our last two episodes with South Carolina Children's Theater and Roper Mountain Science Center. And if you visit the Children's Museum, take a look at the entire Heritage Green Campus, which has a lot of fun for families.

Carri Hutchens: [1:07] Hi, Lauren. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Lauren Luneckas: [1:09] Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Carri Hutchens: [1:10] So we're here to talk about the Children's Museum of the Upstate, and I love the Children's Museum. I have a toddler, and we've really enjoyed going down there, and he's really into the water feature, the sound stairs. That's a big hit right now. Can you talk about what do you love about working for the Children's Museum?

Lauren Luneckas: [1:30] I think working for the Children's Museum is just such a fulfilling and enriching job to get to have. My background personally is in the corporate world. And so this is my first foray into nonprofits from a staff perspective. I've served on boards and volunteered. But knowing the why behind the work and that it is so impactful and so meaningful, both to families, to children individually and to our community, it's just super motivating. It's also an incredibly fun office. I've never had an office so full of color and giggles and laughs and play. It's a really special space to get to spend as much time as we all spend at work.

Carri Hutchens: [2:10] I love that. But so can you give us a sense of the kinds of programs that you run year round and what's something that kids get to do in your programs that they might not experience anywhere else?

Lauren Luneckas: [2:21] I think that's the beauty of spaces like children's museums. We refer to them as informal learning settings. We're really blessed in Greenville to have some great formal learning spaces, a school district that performs well and lots of options for children to gain knowledge that way. But young children, particularly early and elementary learners like we serve.

Lauren Luneckas: [2:42] For them, play is really serious business. That is how their brains are best developing. And so to provide an outlet where play is central, education is foundational, but to the child, they are just coming to have a great time. As the adults in their lives, we know that they're learning a whole lot while they're there. But it is unique to get to offer opportunities like that for children. It can help close some pretty significant educational gaps for children in communities that might be underserved. For example, in the Children's Museum, we have an airplane, which you may have seen on your visit. And we know a lot of our visitors won't actually get to go to GSP, get on an airplane and fly somewhere. So it's not a perfect replication for that experience, but it does help them understand what it might be like. And so that's just one example of a gap that gets closed in our building. It's really impactful to their long-term outcomes that educational outcomes are the most obvious but also to their economic outcomes in adulthood to health and wellness outcomes and so we know how meaningful the work is how important it is and frankly how special it is to have a resource like the Children's Museum of the Upstate in Greenville. It's the seventh largest children's museum in the country. We are not the seventh largest market in the country, so it's a wonderfully outsized resource and we feel a lot of responsibility to take great care of it, to build on the work of the people who came before us and then to leave it in a great spot for all the generations that will come after.

Carri Hutchens: [4:11] Yeah, that's great. I had no idea about the seventh largest. That's fascinating. So let's talk about your summer programming. So what do you have going on this summer and what are you most excited about?

Lauren Luneckas: [4:22] We love summer because it is such a bustling and vibrant time at the museum. And I think it's a great reminder for families that there's robust educational programming that can continue in those weeks when school are out. And again, in a way that's really fun. I had a member describe to me once that she considers the museum a lot like how she makes spaghetti. She blends up carrots and puts it in her spaghetti sauce. And the kids are none the wiser. And that's sort of what we're doing with education at the museum. We're putting it in the midst of all this play so that the children don't even really realize how much they're learning. And so it's a great summer option for families. It's also a really great option for folks who might find themselves in caregiving situations in summer that they're not typically in. So grandparents, aunts and uncles, maybe families coming to visit from out of town because Greenville is such a great place to be. It's a wonderful resource for that kind of intergenerational connection as well. And I'm really excited that we have daily programming offered at the museum that is free with the cost of admission so children can participate in activities like our science lab, our STEAM lab, or open art story time. There's enrichment in the midst of all of the standard play that you would expect at the museum. And it's just a really great way to bridge the time between end of school and start of the next year.

Carri Hutchens: [5:42] Yeah. So we talked about your, you know, broad experiences that you provide. So I just want to take a bit of a personal look. So has there been a memorable moment or a story that really stuck with you? Something that made you think like, this is why we do this work or this is really impactful?

Lauren Luneckas: [5:57] There are a few and it sounds maybe trite or unbelievable to say that daily we're experiencing things that just reinforce on a personal level why the work is so meaningful. I think I've witnessed firsthand interactions between caregivers and their children that would be hard to replicate in environments outside of ours. And that's really meaningful in a time and place where we're often on screens, where we're very connected to work, where it's hard to be present with each other. And sometimes it can be overwhelming to think about how to best play with your children. To see those kind of connections start to fire is wonderful.

Lauren Luneckas: [6:37] Really rewarding for me. I'm a mother. I have a one-year-old. And so I know what it can mean to make those memories together. And I find it really special to watch other people do that. One thing that we're starting to see at the museum that I'm excited to see more of, TCMU turns 16 this year, so we're getting our driver's license. And at that stage of the museum's history, we're starting to hear the first stories of children who were at the museum and are now pursuing adulthood and careers. So we got a picture, for example, from a child singing on the stage in the museum, probably around 2010. And it was accompanied with a picture of them singing in the choir at College of Charleston on stage, and they're pursuing a degree in music. And so we're starting to see the connection between these moments of curiosity that we're developing at the museum and how it's playing out into long-term careers and interests. And I think over the next five to six years, those are going to be some of the very coolest stories to start to hear.

Carri Hutchens: [7:41] Oh, yes. That's amazing. So I want to take a look now, so behind the scenes, to think about what the process is like of things that we don't see as someone who's just coming into the museum. So what's something that your team does really well that you think most people probably won't even notice.

Lauren Luneckas: [7:58] The amount of intentionality that goes into exhibit creation and implementation is far beyond what I think most people would know. Exhibit work from ideation to implementation can take anywhere from 18 months on a really aggressive and efficient timeline to three or four years on a longer, more standard timeline. And what our team is incredibly good at is being thoughtful about the skills that children need to know. And taking really complex concepts and making them appropriate for early and elementary learners. And it's a much harder task than I think people would give that credit for. We have a healthcare exhibit, for example, and we talked to child life specialists and doctors who gave us very specific feedback on the kind of medical concepts they would want children to know. But of course, they were using adult-level medical language. And our team is so savvy at taking what's important but complex and making it digestible for children. And it's amazing to watch our team work. We are so blessed with the staff that we have here in the Upstate doing that work. And they deserve a ton of credit for the amount of time that goes into that process, but for the amount of expertise and detail that goes into that process as well.

Carri Hutchens: [9:18] Yeah. So, you know, Children's Museum, it's so interesting. So I actually moved here from Oregon almost two years ago. And I, when I had my son, actually, we had had a Children's Museum that was just outside of Portland that closed down during the pandemic and it never reopened. And so when I had my son, it was really sad because I was looking and there were no other children's museums in the area at all. You'd have to go up to Seattle, which is a couple hours away. And then when I moved out here and I saw that we had a children's museum out here, not only that, but there are so many in a small geographic area. I was very surprised about that.

Lauren Luneckas: [9:54] Yeah, it's really fortunate to live in South Carolina in terms of access to children's museums. So in our state, we have, if you consider central museums and satellite locations, eight children's museum locations to enjoy. Neighboring states much larger than us, I won't name them to protect them, but larger states close by have two, for example, in the whole state. So much larger populations, much larger land area, and far fewer children's museums resources. So it's really special. It's a huge asset for our state. Of course, we think predominantly about the mission impact that that amount of early learning resource has. But I don't know that nonprofits or children's museums specifically are always as open or proud as they should be about the economic impact, too, across the state. We did an economic impact study last year, so it looked at 2013 to 2023. It's about a $640 million economic impact on the state over that 10-year period. And in Greenville County, it's been about a $339 million economic impact over 10 years. So there's the core of what we are called to do, which is deliver that mission. But if we can do it while working, benefiting the community in a multitude of ways, including economically. I think that that's really important that we continue to do that. And we're really proud that we can do that.

Carri Hutchens: [11:17] So if someone from the community wants to get more involved in the Children's Museum, whether they have kids or not, what's the best way for them to do that?

Lauren Luneckas: [11:25] There are quite a few ways to get involved with the Children's Museum. One, if you have children in your life who are zero to 12, visiting is a wonderful way to get involved. Admissions support the mission of the museum. So it's really a great way to come, again, make those memories, infuse play and learning into the important child in your life, into their week or day, and to support the work the museum is doing. So visiting us is one. Volunteering is another great way. We have a number of different opportunities to get involved. It's a very large facility. It's 90,000 square feet of space to learn and play in. And so we have had folks volunteer when they have a trade or skill that they can lend to the museum to help us keep the building in great shape. We have former educators who like to volunteer and work directly with children. So front of house, behind the scenes, administrative, there's tons of ways to get involved. And donating. As a nonprofit, the philanthropic support is critical to us being able to continue to operate and operate in a way that allows us to be affordable and accessible to the whole community.

Carri Hutchens: [12:32] Wonderful. So is there anything else that you'd like listeners to know before we go? Something that maybe we haven't touched on yet?

Lauren Luneckas: [12:39] I think it's really important for folks to just know a little bit about what happens in the building. If you do not have a child age zero to 12, you can't access the Children's Museum, and that's for safety reasons. So we like to say that we're the only place in Greenville that you need to be chaperoned by a child. So if there are folks listening that don't have little ones in their lives or don't have one they can borrow, a niece or nephew or grandchild. I would just like them to know how vibrant and active a place the Children's Museum is and how experiential and immersive it is. When we think about museums, most of us default to curatorial experiences, and those are wonderful and valuable. But we think of walking into a building and looking at beautiful art.

Lauren Luneckas: [13:23] An amazing artifact, but it's not a place that we can touch things, run, jump, experience. And the Children's Museum is experiential. So it's completely opposite of that curatorial experience. You are meant to participate and touch and play with everything that you see. And so that's something that really distinguishes us from a lot of museum experiences that someone might traditionally think about. So it's an incredibly special place.

Lauren Luneckas: [13:49] And I would want people to know that. It's also hyper-locally focused. So I would encourage families in particular to visit children's museums in the course of travel. There are 300 in the United States and new ones opening all the time, but they're going to feel very differently from one another. If you go to the Children's Museum in Seattle, it should feel differently than just the Children's Museum of the Upstate. We want to reflect the communities where we operate. So in our building, you're going to see aeronautics and automotive exhibits because those are huge industries.

Lauren Luneckas: [14:22] And we want children to know what's available to them long term here right in our backyard. So it's a wonderful thing to infuse into family travel for folks who do have access to little ones. And I think I was mentioning to you earlier the civic impact that museums can have. And what is so special about children's museums, in my opinion, is that it centers the child. And if you think about spaces in our community, there are lots of child-friendly spaces, but there are very few spaces built entirely for children. Everything is at their height. Everything is at their reading level. Everything is at their appropriate fine or gross motor skill moment in life. And so it's a special place for a large portion of our citizenry to get to go when they're used to being in spaces not really built for them, maybe built to accommodate them, but not to tailor to them. So we want them to envision themselves in their community, to understand how the community works, to see themselves as doctors or mechanics or construction workers in our exhibit and to hopefully translate that into being a really good member of the community in adulthood.

Carri Hutchens: [15:34] That is wonderful. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and thank you for all the work that you do.

Lauren Luneckas: [15:40] Thank you for having us.

Catherine Puckett: Simple Civics: Greenville County is a project of Greater Good Greenville. Greater Good Greenville was catalyzed by the merger of the Nonprofit Alliance and the Greenville Partnership for Philanthropy. You can learn more on our website at greatergoodgreenville.org.