SHENANDOAH VALLEY DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC

2024 was a year of creativity and growth for the Shenandoah Discovery Museum. The museum had a direct impact on over 71,000 people through field trips, camps, STEAM nights and in person visits. Our total impact was beyond 102,500 people. We transformed our water shed area, installing a new custom-made water table reflecting the Chesapeake Watershed complete with a full-sized crab fishing boat. We also added a Food Truck to our Discover the Valley: Food for Thought exhibit on the second floor completing the farm to fork loop. Our new food truck invites visitors to cook their bounty collected from all of the other exhibit components throughout the floor. We celebrated our ribbon cutting on second floor with an enormous amount of community excitement for the new educational components. Our community also gathered to celebrate a fun Star Light Star Bright Illuminate the Night gala in September. We got the opportunity to welcome back a wonderful family who have supported and celebrated the museum several times through the years. This year they decided to kick off the Hess Family Summer Camp Scholarship fund. We continue to grow our attendance raising the number of active members families from 685 families in 2023 to 720 families in 2024. Our summer camps welcomed 503 total campers even though the local school systems shortened the summer vacation by almost 2 full weeks. We were able to offer 71 scholarships. We also welcomed 10% of our total attendance as Mission Driven attendance; including either free or reduced attendance for over 4,500 visitors. The Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum stays firmly committed to opening our doors as wide as possible and adding wonderful new ways to achieve our mission of: Sparking Curiosity and Inspiring Learning Through Exploration and Creative Play.