Road Reports

Key Ingredients: Impact and Legacy

We're midway through Key Ingredients here in Michigan.

A few weeks ago, one of Michigan's Key Ingredients sites posed an interesting question to their peers:  How do MOMS communities build upon their success as exhibit hosts? How do they take advantage of the increased visibility, presence, and stature in their communities?

The answers are revealing:

Site #1 noted that the experience prepared them to handle ambitious projects like this in the future. Also, the experience "looks good on future grant applications." The coordinator suggested keeping in contact with all program partners, with an eye towards for other ways to work together.

Site #2 remarked that Key Ingredients inspired them to pursue a three-year project including a professional exhibit and oral history project. The coordinator said that they are trying to "capture" their exhibition volunteers and bring them into the folds of the organization. She noted that the exhibit led to new levels of participation and collaboration between her organization and area businesses. "Our community really rallied around" the exhibits, she reported. But, she also noted that she and the other local leadership was worn out.

Site #3 stated that the project raised community awareness of their organization. But, they must build upon the short-term "buzz" for any lasting legacy. The exhibits were housed in a new facility; as such, the coordinator experimented with a variety of programs. Based on the results -- some worked, some didn't -- which helped them construct models for future programming. She noted the importance of keeping new volunteers active and taking advantage of future fund raising opportunities amongst program partners.

She ended with a prescient observation: In order to continue the success of something like Key Ingredients, an organization must make an investment (in staff or otherwise) to maintain the level of activity reached during the exhibit. If treated as a one-time event, it will be just that.

In my personal experience, I think it's key for host organizations to keep in mind that it's not so much the appearance of Key Ingredients -- or any exhibit -- as it is the actions of the organization itself that lead to long-term impact. In other words, getting the exhibits is half the story. Organizations are "awarded" them because they already have the capacity, creativity, and infrastructure to support similar projects.

-- Gregory Parker, Michigan State Coordinator for Key Ingredients, Michigan Humanities Council, Lansing, MI

Creative Programs Make Between Fences a Hit In Evanston, Wyoming

Local students and visitors have been flocking to the Uinta County Museum in Evanston, Wyoming since it opened Between Fences a few weeks ago. The museum's director, Barbara Allen Bogart, reports on their successful programs:

"Our accompanying exhibits include entries in the quilt challenge and photo contest, and several display panels on "Famous Fences." Members of a local 4-H Club took photos of fences in the county; a middle school teacher had her students produce quilt blocks on the theme of fences. One of the high school art teachers challenged her students to produce art work on "personal fences" -- the result is six brightly colored corrugated metal panels erected like a fence in the front of the building and an "accordion book" display inside the Museum.  We also created a "velcro poetry" poetry board (similar to Magnetic Poetry) made with about 200 individual words printed on colored paper, then mounted on foam core, with velcro on the back (painstakingly put on by a volunteer). We have folding table-top panels with fabric covering that people can use to arrange the words.

The local Murdochs ranch supply store loaned us two eight-foot metal gates. We put them up outside the building and mounted large signs on them that can be read from the street -- "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors," "Don't Fence Me In," and "How do you build your fences?"

At our opening reception on Saturday, the local civic choir performed several fence-themed songs and we announced the winners of the quilt and photo contests. Mike McClure from Lander presented the photo awards. We had more than 100 people attend the reception and see the exhibit.

On Monday, more than 100 eighth graders visited us; on Tuesday, it was 60 fourth graders. We have scheduled all the 4th, 7th and 8th grade students in the district to see the exhibit. We have trained 10 volunteer docents to lead the school tours -- all of them are former teachers, which works like a dream.  They are happy to be involved and they are accustomed to working with children. Most importantly, they are able to take the suggestions in the docent handbook and translate them into kid terms.

When we have more students than we can accommodate in the building, we have an activity center in an adjacent building where kids can create acrostic poems, use our velcro poetry board, work on a fence matching activity, play with Lincoln Logs, and discuss the images on the classroom poster. These activities are for younger students; the middle school students really enjoy the activity sheets that were provided with the exhibit. We created a board with photos of various scenes that required fences. Students had to match the fence pieces (which are printed on both sides) with the scenes, so that the fence on each side of the piece matches the scene.

Uinta County Museum's fence matching game

The newspaper is giving us great coverage. We placed a couple of ads in the newspaper, free ads on two local access cable stations, and posters plastered all over town. Other forms of publicity that are working especially well are box-toppers at the local Dominos and table tents at local restaurants. We have already had visitors in the Museum who learned of the exhibit through these media. At Dominos, we produced 500 half-sheets announcing the exhibit that they taped to pizza boxes at no charge. Now that the exhibit is launched, we feel like we can relax a little!  So far, so good!"

Congratulations to everyone in Evanston for their great efforts! To find out more about their local programs, visit the museum's website at http://www.uintacounty.com/index.asp?nid=28

-- Robbie Davis, Museum on Main Street, SITES, Washington, DC

Food and Fun at Bowie, Maryland's Belair Mansion

Congratulations go to Bowie, Maryland for rolling out an exciting welcome mat for Key Ingredients: America by Food. The exhibition is at historic Belair Mansion, operated by the City of Bowie Museums, through January 5. In just the first week of festivities, more than 150 people enjoyed events associated with the opening of the exhibition. A symposium on Maryland foodways attracted participants from as far away as Delaware, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Speaker Mary Ann Jung appeared as Julia Child at an event at the Bowie Library. There are local exhibitions at the community's other museums, including "What Do Horses Eat" at the Belair Stables. And, the museum was greeted on its first weekend with the exhibition with three times the normal number of visitors! For more information on the museum's plans for Key Ingredients, visit its website at http://www.cityofbowie.org/museum/

-- Robbie Davis, Museum on Main Street, SITES, Washington, DC

Reinvigorating the Past in Elkton, Maryland

The Historical Society of Cecil County was pleased to sponsor Key Ingredients in northeastern Maryland. Building on the Museum on Main Street product, we curated a display, held lectures, and sponsored a photo contest. When the evening arrived to kick off the activities, 17 downtown Elkton shops, galleries, restaurants, and bars stayed open to celebrate the Smithsonian's arrival. We also partnered with the local Arts Council and the Elkton Alliance, the Maryland Main Street's revitalization authority, for the visit, which was made possible through the Maryland Humanities Council.

It was an unsually comfortable August evening on the Chesapeake Bay when we opened our doors to welcome the public and a great crowd turned out. People filled our headquarters as fantastic original music flowed and shop owners and restaurants greeted some 400 visitors. Before strolling through the business district on the "Taste Loop," I was already so pleased with the pleasant evening, the outstanding exhibit, and the astounding turnout that filled our museum. But as dusk settled on Cecil County, I strolled down Main Street with Jean Wortman from the Maryland Humanities Council and her husband. That's an experience I will long recall for it was wonderful to see the business area filled with strollers enjoying the ambiance of the evening, the entertainment and displays, and the samplings of local food that a dozen restaurants offered. As we passed from shop-to-shop, enjoying conversations at every stop, it was reminiscent of a downtown I recall from forty or more years ago, when Elkton's business district regularly filled with shoppers and strollers on Friday and Saturday evening.

This was a wonderful opportunity for the community and the Society. Hundreds of patrons visited the museum and businesses on opening night and a large portion of the assemblage was new to our downtown and to our organization. After the show, a number of the older businesspeople remarked about how much they too enjoyed the evening for it reminded them of a time long ago when the heart of the historic town was a bustling place on shopping nights. It was wonderful for us to be able to facilitate this occurrence for it demonstrated to key community stakeholders the power of our museum as an anchor in an old town that is working to draw people downtown and it demonstrated the value of working together on large initiatives.

We thank the Smithsonian and the Maryland Humanities Council for making this possible and we look forward to building on this broad-based demonstration project.

-- Michael Dixon, Historian, Historical Society of Cecil County, Elkton, Maryland