The Please Touch Museum Will Remain Closed Until 2021!
The Please Touch Museum Will Remain Closed Until 2021!
The Please Touch Museum has been hit hard by the pandemic. The popular children’s attraction has been making cuts and announced this weekend that they plan to remain closed until 2021.
COVID-19 has led Please Touch Museum to lay off 75% of its staff leaving a mere 18 employees working modified shifts to keep the museum afloat. The remaining staff was also subjected to salary reductions.
Please Touch Museum President and CEO, Patricia Wellenbach stated, “Because we have this shared mission and sets of values around children and supporting children in their earliest years of learning and development, we are a family and it was very difficult. The board labored over the decision for several meetings.”
Although the museum did receive grant funding to finish two exhibits under construction, Please Touch Museum claims it lost a whopping $4 million since March,
President Wellenbach added, “We won’t be bringing in revenue but we have implemented extensive cost reductions in the operating model and we have created an operating model that will cost us about $200,000 a month. Normally, we run at about $700,000 a month. We’ve taken drastic cuts through everything we do. Still protecting and preserving the building, the legacy of Memorial Hall and with an eye toward a reopen when we can continue with our mission to support children in the earliest years in their emotional and social development.”
In a recent Facebook post Please Touch Museum stated,
Please Touch Museum Extends Temporary Closure into 2021 and all memberships remain frozen with no time lost.
“The decision to implement a pause on playing together is agonizing,” said Patricia D. Wellenbach, President and CEO of Please Touch Museum. “Although we are extending our closure into 2021, our mission and commitment to providing informal learning experiences that support intellectual, social and emotional learning for young children has never been more critical. We will use this time to redefine the future experience of PTM in a post-pandemic world and we will continue our planning to welcome visitors again when it is safe to do so.”
