
Picture Credit score: Amy Peters
We’re at all times excited to see the numerous distinctive methods by which companions throughout the nation share The Household Dinner Mission with their audiences. In 2021-2022, a grant from the Tracy Family Foundation made attainable a number of incredible and artistic applications, together with a collection of occasions on the Quincy Children’s Museum in Quincy, IL. Take a look at their revolutionary concepts!
The Households:
Households in Quincy, Illinois had been in a position to entry occasions and displays on the Youngsters’s Museum reflecting The Household Dinner Mission and the significance of household meals. 60 households attended a group dinner occasion the place they ready meals, whereas many others had been in a position to work together with content material about household meals by ongoing outreach displays as a part of the museum’s cellular programming.

Picture Credit score: Amy Peters
The Occasions:
Working with one other native enterprise, Dinner is in the Bag, the Youngsters’s Museum arrange group occasions to permit households to study, share, and create meals they may convey house. The occasions had been created to comply with each the mannequin of The Household Dinner Mission, and the Museum’s core values: Curiosity (Inspiring households to strive one thing new); Connection (Empowering households to develop intentional relationships); Creativity (Exploring new supplies and ideas collectively); and Discovery (Creating which means alternatives to study one thing new).
Along with the dinner occasions, the Quincy Youngsters’s Museum prolonged the household meals theme by providing displays and actions aligned with the idea of connecting and exploring by meals, enjoyable, and dialog. They arrange an interactive mini-market exhibit to permit youngsters to play, discover, and create with (faux) meals. Additionally they provided group giveaways that includes our Eat, Laugh, Talk e book, present playing cards to assist with household meals, and board video games to convey to the desk for household sport nights.

Picture Credit score: Amy Peters
All through the summer season of 2022, the Museum additionally introduced some household dinner actions and concepts into their group programming. One spotlight was operating dinner-themed programming with youngsters collaborating within the Quincy Park District summer season camp. The Museum workers visited and engaged in dialogue and sharing with the youngsters about mealtimes of their households, performed video games, and helped them make ice cream. The mini-market exhibit was additionally built-in into the Museum’s summer season pop-up occasions.
“It was so good to carve out some particular time to deliberately pour into households, develop significant conversations and relationships, and share our coronary heart and mission with the group by this initiative,” says Amy Peters, Director of the Quincy Youngsters’s Museum.
The Takeaways, Subsequent Steps, and Greatest Half
Amy shares that the Museum plans to proceed extending the household dinner studying and enjoyable all through the Fall of 2022, by an enlargement of the displays and programming concepts. In mid-September, the museum participated in a Household Enjoyable Day in collaboration with native dietitians from each healthcare and meals distribution facilities. The museum additionally plans to succeed in youngsters and households in October at quite a lot of trunk or deal with fashion occasions, sharing parts of The Household Dinner Mission.

Picture Credit score: Amy Peters
What was the very best a part of dedicating among the Museum’s efforts to household dinners? “What stands out is the gratitude households had following the occasion for the intentional time we devoted to creating this a precedence,” Amy says. She additionally factors out the numerous connections between household meal-themed playtime and real-world tutorial and life abilities. “The children adored the mini market we created for the occasion and we’re hoping to develop it. The conversations it’s sparked, connection to math, sorting, colours, meals identification, dramatic play, and actual life abilities have been so beneficial!”
We’re so impressed by the artistic pondering and deep dedication to household connections proven by the Quincy Youngsters’s Museum and its group companions. Thanks, Amy and group!
Would you prefer to study extra about bringing The Household Dinner Mission to your group? Contact us.