The Children’s Museum of the Treasure Coast

My name is Tammy Calabria and I am the Executive Director of The Children’s Museum of the Treasure Coast, located in Jensen Beach Florida. The mission of The Children’s Museum is to offer children and families a safe place to explore and learn through hands-on activities, educational programs and cultural experiences. The Children’s Museum is dedicated to providing a safe, state-of-the-art, environmentally conscious atmosphere where curiosity and self-confidence are fostered in children, adolescents and adults. The Children’s Museum, open since August 2008, is a family-friendly place museums throughout the country, the Children’s Museum of the Treasure Coast, exists to support the very simple, but profound truth that children learn through play and that for the youngest among us, play provides essential foundation for lifelong learning.

But our mission goes well beyond the realm of play. We also believe strongly in the health and wellness of the children and families in our community. We all have been taught about the food pyramid and the food groups and we all know that eating a well-balanced diet is beneficial to our health, but do we always follow those guidelines? Probably not as much as we would like. The Children’s Museum decided to focus its efforts on creating activities and experiences that will truly have an impact in helping children adopt a well-balanced healthy lifestyle. After doing some research and observation the Museum’s staff found that going beyond the conventional approach of paper and pen teaching would Museum then turned to Nancy Erlick and her Spiffy’s Once Upon A Farm series for help in developing a hands-on interactive experience that children would be excited to engage in. Nancy believed that children need to be inspired visually as well as intellectually therefore she created a series has called Spiffy”s Once Upon A Farm. The series is full of fun colorful animated characters that resemble a number of various fruits and vegetables all lead by the ever curious mascot grasshopper Spiffy. The series includes a comic book, coloring book, musical, playground structures and much more.

After meeting with Nancy the Children’s Museum’s Board and staff decided that this concept and out of the box approach was exactly what the Museum needed to maximize the impact we were hoping to make with our visitors and school groups. In 2010 the Museum began to carry the Spiffy’s Once Upon A Farm comic book and coloring book which Museum partnered with the Martin Memorial Foundation and David Smythe to receive 3 amazing gifts for our Children’s Garden! Spiffy, the inquisitive grasshopper sculpture and balance board, the carrot climber and squash slide now sit in the heart of the Children’s Garden and children of all ages can now interact with these colorful veggies every day, proving that Nancy’s theory about interaction with the mysterious veggies can help encourage kids to embrace the idea that fruits and veggies can be fun! Nancy’s passion and dedication to seeing this project through is unlike any I have experienced before. It is our hope that Nancy will find an organization that can embrace the project as a whole and make it a reality.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at 772-225-7575 ext. 203.

Tammy Calabria
Executive Director
www.childrensmuseumtc.org