Museum Creates Free Play Kits for Families in Need

Kids will rev up their creativity and stretch their ingenuity as they tinker with materials in free play kits Minnesota Children’s Museum is giving to families in need.

Museum staff and volunteers have already assembled nearly 400 kits – and hundreds more will get packed in the coming weeks.

We’re delivering the kits to community organizations that serve lower-income families, such as Community Action Partnership of Ramsey and Washington County (CAPRW), Parents in Community Action (PICA) and Keystone Community Services.

The initiative is part of the museum’s commitment to sparking play outside our walls. We love serving the thousands of kids and grownups who explore our exhibits in downtown St. Paul, but we know many families are not able visit for a variety of reasons.

The kits include an intriguing assortment of loose parts, including balls, cups, tubes, felt, connectors, sticks and springs. There are no directions provided, just prompts to get kids started on following their imagination. It’s the type of open-ended, child-led activity that we feature in our experiences at the museum.

We’re grateful to the state Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund for providing the grant funds to pay for the play kits. We also appreciate the volunteer team from McKinsey & Company that devoted a recent morning at the museum packing kits as part of the company’s annual Day of Service.