The Lander Children’s Museum (LCM) was created in 2000, to foster curiosity and creativity through a variety of hands-on learning experiences and interactive exhibits. This passion grew as an extension of wanting more developmentally appropriate opportunities for young children in this small, but progressive community. The museum was started by Martha Howard-Sempert, with the help of Susan Brame, RaJean Strube-Fossen and other enthusiastic board members. These wonderful people acquired a 501C3 non-profit status and the Lander Children’s Museum was created!
LCM has offered support through the exploration in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math (STEAM) in a fun, and engaging environment. In house exhibits, classroom visits, check-out science trunks, and our Mobile MakerSpace Trailer helped us uphold our mission. The Little Curious Minds Preschool was added in 2009, and ran within LCM until 2021.
LCM has been active in local community events such as Winter Fair, Garden Expo, Lander Presents (previously Lander Live), Challenge for Charities (C4C), Wyoming Outdoor Weekend, and Art in the Afternoon. Each year LCM has offered annual events for families that include: Waterworks, Fall Fest, Santa’s Workshop, Grinchmas, Summer Series programs, and a wide variety of smaller themed hands-on, child-centered family events.
For several years we hosted the Monte Carlo Affair as our annual Capital Campaign. In 2020 we celebrated 20 years with a large “Gatsby Gala” and received the Anchor award from the Chamber of Commerce. We’ve hit some huge milestones over the last 22 years, including tip-toeing our way through the COVID -19 pandemic. We hope that LCM has been seen as a great asset to this community offering a place for children to come play, have parties and attend programs and events. The community of Lander has always been incredibly supportive of our endeavors and we could not have done it without your support!
Unfortunately, the recent pandemic and subsequent socio economic changes, have presented significant challenges for us. We have tried our very best to keep our doors open and meet the needs of our community and have been able to do so for the last two years due to Lander’s generous support. However, as we move forward from the pandemic, we find the mission of our organization is not meeting the needs of the community as it was before. There are many great opportunities in our community and in an effort to be fiscally responsible, the board of the Lander Children’s Museum has made the difficult decision to close our doors. We cannot thank the community enough for your support over the years and while we are heartbroken at this decision, we hope we have left a legacy that fosters and encourages the continued support of learning through exploration for the young citizens of our community.
Our doors will close on June 30th, 2023. We invite you, the community, to still attend our open play hours, participate in our Easter Egg event, sign up for our summer camps in June and attend our final WaterWorks event to help us say goodbye. Please understand that any of these last events are helping us keep the doors open until our final closing date.
With gratitude,
LCM Board of Directors and Staff
Paid for by Lander Children’s Museum