Donation from the Historical Society will help keep facility’s doors open
The James Monroe Children’s Museum has been given a new lease on life, thanks to a $12,000 donation from the Madera County Historical Society.
With 15 excited sixth graders in costume looking on, historical society president Sheryl Berry presented museum director Ed Gwartney with the check that will assure that the kids won’t have to close the doors to their interactive western town. Now they will be able to finish the school year.
The good news came at the society’s annual meeting Monday evening in the fellowship hall of Harvest Community Church, which featured a special program from the museum’s student docents. The young thespian/historians regaled their benefactors with tales from the Old West, including a stage coach robbery, flirting dance hall girls, fainting travelers, and a monologue from William Thurman, Madera’s first sheriff.
Berry expressed the society’s admiration for the model the children’s museum has set for teaching history by allowing students to be the teachers...