Our Mission

The mission of the Children’s Museum of St. Johns is to offer interactive experiences for children and families which inspire creativity and a lifelong love of learning.

Sharing the Vision

A children’s museum will fill a much-needed gap in our community.  A large number of tourist, cultural and nature-based attractions exist in St. Johns County that families can attend together but there are no interactive, educational environments targeted specifically at very young and school-age children where they can pretend, create and learn at their own paces.

What is a Children’s Museum?

Unlike traditional museums which emphasize collections of art or artifacts, children’s museums operate on the belief that children’s needs and interests of children and their motivation to learn are just as important as the actual content of the museum.

There are four essential characteristics to children’s museums:

• Learning through interaction with the environment and structured play.
• Informal settings let visitors follow their interests without time constraints or schedules. Visitors engage in real experiences within exhibits built to a child’s scale.
• Museum experiences become relevant to visitors’ everyday experiences through associated memories, feelings and imaginations.

A Museum Without Walls

Because we’ve spent valuable time assessing the needs and interests of the community before pursuing a permanent location, the Children’s Museum of St. Johns has been able to focus on creating quality programming, building collaborative relationships, and inspiring play and a love of learning through traveling exhibits and events.

Although our ultimate goal is to open a facility of our own, for now we are a museum without walls. We’ve made many important steps toward a permanent home, including: 

• Fully formed Board of Directors and Presidential Advisory Board
• 501(c)3 granted July 2007
  Retained a nationally recognized, independent consulting firm to aid with strategic planning process – Summer 2009
• Strategic plan unveiled December 2009
• Site Selection Committee actively working with private owners, realtors, the cities of St. Augustine, St. Augustine Beach and St. Johns County to review and select a site.
• Researching grants and additional funding available
• Teams of subject matter experts from the community will help with exhibit concept development
• Three outreach/traveling exhibits have debuted in the community
• Our website allows visitors to learn about our history, mission, future goals, and current exhibits and programming
• Implementation of a media plan including articles in local newspapers and magazines
• Current member of the St. Johns Cultural Council and St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce
• Current member of the Association of Children’s Museums - a global leader, advocate and resource among organizations serving the learning needs of children and families.