Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum

2023 was a year of growth and transformation for the Discovery Museum. The museum had a direct impact on over 69,000 people through field trips, camps, virtual field trips and in person visits. Our total impact was beyond 104,000 people. We began transforming our second floor into a farm to fork style exhibit titled: Discover the Valley: Food for Thought. Our goal is to highlight the incredible agricultural jewels present in the Shenandoah Valley. This first year, of our two-year exhibit installation, is focused on upgrading our apple packing shed and our farmers market. We also installed the cornerstone barn exhibit which is the highlight of our educationally rich farm display. The barn serves as the immersive setting for several exhibit components that highlights poultry and dairy farming. The barns also showcases the rich history of the valleys equine industry. We included a mural of our local champion; Sir Barton, who was the first horse to win the Triple Crown! Our exhibit team worked hard to ensure that our exhibits reflect all of the local history and pride of the Shenandoah Valley. We hosted our first Call for Art: requesting proposals from local artists, through a juried process we selected an artist to create a stunning mural in our classroom. The museum also impacted the local community through partnership driven Family Fun Walk that is in Jim Burnett Park and offers interactive engaging prompts for families to enjoy. All of these educational kinesthetic exhibit components were funded by our local community partners. We continue to grow our attendance raising the number of active members families from 618 families in 2022 and increasing to 685 families in 2023. Our summer camp schedule consisted of 37 total camps that welcomed 547 total campers. We offered scholarships to 24% of our campers. We increased the amount of free attendance going from 3,900 in 2022 to over 5,033 in 2023. The Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum stays firmly committed to opening our doors as wide as possible.