Funding Rural | Episode #17 | Season 2: Sunny Spicer “Sparking Early Learning”
The Children’s Museum of Southern Oregon in Medford, which operates a dynamic museum and expansive preschool program, is a beacon of connection for children and families. They are scaling up their museum and preschool operations and expanding to another rural Southern Oregon community. Executive director Sunny Spicer speaks to the value of these ‘third spaces’ in a community, places curating connections like schools, museums, and libraries, and how philanthropy can best support them.
“What is our role as a children’s museum? It’s not just what we provide here…. It’s modeling the things that you can do with your kids.” -Sunny Spicer
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More about Sunny Spicer
Sunny Spicer has over two decades in the field of early learning and nonprofit leadership. She is the Executive Director of the Oregon Center for Creative Learning, a dynamic organization dedicated to fostering creativity, play-based education, and community connection. Under Sunny’s leadership, the Center operates the award-winning Children’s Museum of Southern Oregon and The Ivy School, a high-quality, highly accredited preschool program that emphasizes the importance of early childhood development through imaginative learning.
With a deep commitment to children and families, Sunny has been instrumental in expanding the Center’s reach and impact across Southern Oregon. She has overseen transformative projects. This includes an extensive collaboration with the Medford School District to provide early learning classrooms on-site in local elementary schools, the creation of the Outdoor Adventure and Outdoor Classroom Pavilion, as well as recently partnered with Dutch Bros to expand into Grants pass with another Children’s Museum and Preschool. Her dedication to inclusivity and accessibility ensures that the Center serves families of all backgrounds and abilities, providing scholarships and fostering partnerships that strengthen the safety net for underserved communities
Sunny is a member of the North West Youth Museum Association, a member of the Jackson County Community Health Improvement Plan Steering Committee, has presented at the Association of Children’s Museums Interactivity Conference, The Oregon Governor’s Conference on Tourism, The Western Museums Association Conference and more. She has been awarded the Jefferson Award for Community Service, The City of Medford Parks & Recreation Award for Community Service, Downtown Medford Association’s Pioneer Award among others.
“We’ve had a parent that has said over and over again…when they become part of our organization, they feel like they have another 20 people on their team, and I hope that’s what people feel, because we feel like we’re a part of their team as well. ” — Sunny Spicer
Discussion Questions
- In this modern, American society, reports show people are struggling to feel personal connections, and that is why ‘third places’ like museums, schools, and libraries which bring people together in person with low or no costs, are so critical to the health of our rural communities. How can you elevate ‘third places’ in your rural strategy?
- The Children’s Museum of Southern Oregon is a place where folks come together to socialize in a setting of learning and play. As place-based funders, can you identify what those specific third places are in your service area? Have you started forming relationships with these places to determine how best to support their efforts?
- The Children’s Museum also is an interesting study of scale in rural areas. They proved their model in one location, and were invited by a large donor to expand their services to another county. Are there avenues for your organization to help a successful ‘third place’ expand into other rural areas?
Resources
- About | TCMSO WEBSITE
- https://www.tcmso.org/copy-of-support-us
- Dutch Bros donates former HQ in Grants Pass to preschool, children’s museum – oregonlive.com
- Children’s Museum’s outdoor classroom slated for completion by late summer
- The Children’s Museum of Southern Oregon celebrates new home in downtown Medford
“My goal is to always make sure that our programs remain free no matter what. Because even if someone could afford to pay for them, if we put that barrier up, then that is a barrier keeping a child from participating. And so that’s where we always will need the community to step in and be a part of it, and you’ll see an incredible return on that investment.” — Sunny Spicer
Transcript: Episode #17 | Season 2: Sunny Spicer “Sparking Early Learning”
Erin Borla 00:00
Thanks for listening to Funding Rural. I’m Erin Borla with the Sisters, Oregon based Roundhouse Foundation. We know that across much of America, and particularly in rural and remote areas, we’re facing a child care desert. Parents in rural communities often struggle to find good day care preschool or other early learning experiences. Those experiences can inspire their children to be lifelong learners and curious citizens. Places where kiddos and parents can socialize and encourage connection, like children’s museums are an important part of the solution to this problem. There’s one museum in particular that I want to talk about today, the Children’s Museum of Southern Oregon and Medford, and it’s a part of the Oregon Center for Creative Learning. They have a developed space with indoor and outdoor creative play areas, and are connected to a pretty impressive preschool program called the Ivy School. The museum opened the preschool 11 years ago with one part time classroom, and they’ve expanded that program ever since. Now. They have 12 classrooms between the museum and within the broader Medford School District, and they have plans to serve even more rural Oregonians in the very near future. We’re going to get into that with Sunny Spicer. She’s the Executive Director of the Oregon Center for Creative Learning. I asked her to start by describing the museum. For those of us who’ve never visited.
Sunny Spicer 01:28
It looks like, I guess, a child’s dreamscape. It’s a child sized version of all the things that they want to experience in the real world. It’s based on a lot of creativity, but also we bring it down to their level. So we have exhibits that represents things that they’ll find in the world. Like we have an ambulance, we have a medical space. We have we have things that allow them to explore in a way that is for them. Things are their size. They’re designed for just specifically for them, but they’re also pieces that are designed specifically for creativity. So we have a little garden, but then there’s also right next to it, a packing barn and a farmer’s market and a little restaurant and all things that engage not just their creativity, but it engages their social skills. So every time that they’re there, they can learn how to make new friends. They can have a different experience based on the friends that are there, and they can also engage with their parents. And so it’s just a fun way to experience the world in a child size, play based way.
Erin Borla 02:47
There’s different ways of learning, right? We have book learning, we have sort of classroom experiences, and then you have this, this sort of social opportunities that are brought about through organizations like the Children’s Museum of Southern Oregon or other places. So talk about the work that is really imperative to children’s development that happens, maybe outside the classroom at places like yours, or even at home. Like, what are folks learning at the museum that they could then do at home?
Sunny Spicer 03:15
Right? So there’s, there’s a lot of that, um, and depending on where they are. I mean, I grew up in a very small rural community on the coast, and for us to have a lot of these sort of outside of the classroom, opportunities either happened with moms getting together and creating what we call in our world, like table provocations, where they get together a bunch of materials and create these fun, creative, lovely learning opportunities. And we had a lot of friends, and we had parents and and our, you know, parents are our first teachers, and the world around us is part of a teacher. It’s this environment that’s engaging us and helping us learn and grow. Sometimes today, the world has become very chaotic and difficult. Parents may not have access to a lot of these creative materials that kids sort of need to spark their engagement. There’s a lot of isolation now, and so that makes it harder. That’s what sort of our role as a children’s museum is. We see people from a lot of different rural areas that come to us to get that that to get that experience. And so what our role as a children’s museum? It’s not just what we provide here. When people are are visiting us. It’s modeling that activity. It’s modeling the things that you can do with your kids. It’s showing what the materials are. You know, we have a lot of really expensive, wonderful, great materials here. We also have things that you can find in your house or really inexpensively in the store. We have things that you can replicate easily. So our role isn’t just to provide the activity in the moment while you’re here, it’s also to show you what these developmental tools are when you go home, and so you can do that anywhere.
Erin Borla 05:12
Yeah, that’s what’s so great, right? Is, I think sometimes, you know, there’s always that running joke around a birthday or a holiday or something where you a parent goes and buys this really fantastic gift for the child, but they fall in love with the box and and being creative and using their own imagination to come up with what happens in that box. And I think you just touched on sort of how all those pieces come together. Of like, it doesn’t have to be this one adventure to the museum. It’s what you take home and are able to replicate at home or at the park or with your buddies. Another time.
Sunny Spicer 05:48
We have an example of that from a museum that we learn from. And they could not they built this beautiful, beautiful building, and they didn’t have the resources to put in all the exhibits. So one of the exhibits they did was have it filled with cardboard boxes, and the kids got to paint them and build all these amazing structures with cardboard and paint and and they changed them out every few days, and then they raised the money to put in this new, very expensive exhibit, and it didn’t get used. It was not as popular as the cardboard was, and they got a lot of pushback. And so they took out the expensive exhibit and they put the cardboard back, because that’s where the creativity is, is having just easily accessible materials that spark that imagination. And it also it’s not just about your own individual imagination. It’s how you work with the kids that are around you. It’s how you get dad to put his phone down, or get grandpa to get engaged, and how you can be really creative with the other materials that might be in the room. So these are really important pieces. So yes, it is really fun to come to a museum that has things that you can’t ever access at home, and you get to enjoy things that are super fun and creative and great, but learning how to engage with those materials that are very, very simple is also a really important piece. So there’s a lot of families that lean on us because this, this is really the primary resource. And so we’re working to double the size of our building. We’ll grow the preschool and the museum by doing that, and it will be a fantastic opportunity for the entire community.
Erin Borla 07:38
Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about some of the other programming that you offer. And then I want to dive into the preschool stuff as well, because I think that’s really important. But the you have a ceramic studio, you have a new cooking space, you have, like a DIY space, where it’s really sort of parent engaged. I mean, you have a Glowforge. We have a glowforge. You taught us how to use our glowforge. Let’s just pause there. So talk a little bit about some of the things. You know. I think, though, even folks that maybe are more familiar with children’s museums maybe think of those static exhibits, or they think of the opportunity for a student to engage, or a young person to engage with a toy or a dress up, but it’s so much more than that.
Sunny Spicer 08:24
It’s so much more than that. The culinary studio, I’ll sort of start there. That’s one that I had been hoping to get for a very long time. And one of the reasons is, you know, how a child relates to food is it’s it impacts a lot of their lives. And we noticed particularly during the COVID years, when families were getting these beautiful produce boxes, and a lot of them were leaving them behind because they didn’t really know what to do. The kids were saying, Ooh, that’s gross. I’m not touching that. And the parents were saying, I don’t really know what to do with that. And so we knew that one of our roles could be helping facilitate that. And so we’ve created this culinary studio, and it is a fun place. Kids get to do the cooking themselves. Sometimes it’s full on cooking, sometimes it’s just preparing, sometimes it’s just tasting different things. And so when the kids are engaged in that process, and it’s fun, and they’re with their friends, and they’re trying new things, it becomes a whole different experience. And so the feedback we’ve received from parents is that it has changed a lot of their children’s relationship with food. And so we have made food fun, and we can make it more nutritional, and that puts them on a path going forward to know that, you know, lunch doesn’t have to be a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos. It can be something that you make and that you can enjoy or that you could grow yourself. And so our role can be, it can be fun, it can be creating art, but it can also be something that is a vital piece of your trajectory in life. And so that is what we’re doing with the culinary studio. We have the ceramic studio also fun. It’s, it’s such a creative piece. And so that’s also it’s something that not all kids can access. So something that we really try to take on is bringing things that aren’t accessible to everyone, and making them easily accessible and affordable. And so whether it’s ceramics, whether it’s live music, it’s painting, I had a parent tell me one time, because we have this amazing Lego collection that is out every day, and she said her kids walk in and they know right where to find the Legos. They think those are their Legos, but we have them available. Are where we do the painting. So many kids don’t get to paint anymore because it’s just not something that parents want to deal with the mess it gets stressful. It creates a different dynamic in the house when parents are feeling stressed, or they feel like things are getting dirty or expensive. So we can provide that. So there’s, there are a lot of different things that we do, and you’re talking about things like the glowforge. You know, we don’t necessarily have a three year old running the glowforge or creating things unless it’s a drawing that we put in the glowforge, but we work to try to create activities for families that they might have a 17 year old and a two year old in the family, we want the whole family to feel comfortable in this process.
Erin Borla 11:28
Yeah, no, it’s really exciting. I every time I come and tour, I just love I want to spend time there. It’s like I want to, I want to play with all the cool toys and all the fun activities and just such a unique space. So when did the preschool start?
Sunny Spicer 11:45
Our first year with the preschool, the school year was 2014.
Erin Borla 11:49
Okay, so it’s been around 10 years now. So through the process of starting the preschool and sort of developing that, what was you mentioned that there was this, you saw the need for having a preschool, and you have this wonderful facility, this beautiful museum, even in its in its prior form, which was a lovely Museum in itself, this desire to have the preschool alongside that talk about that journey, getting to that space of sort of becoming more than just the museum.
Sunny Spicer 12:20
So increasing the educational aspect of it has always been a top priority. So that’s where we decided to create the preschool. But the affordability is has always been a challenge. When you think about this issue of a child care desert, which so much of our state falls into that category. There’s, there’s a couple of different, there’s so many different challenges, but there is, there is both a capacity problem and there’s also an affordability problem. And so you can’t, we can’t just say, Fine, we’ll go out and build a whole bunch of preschools. We can’t do that without also addressing the affordability piece. And so we knew that if, if we were going to start building preschool, we needed to also find a way for families to afford it. Currently within our demographics, it’s only about 15 to 20% of the families can actually just straight up afford coming to our program. So there’s about 55% that can’t afford it at all. They need a full scholarship in order to attend. Then there’s that middle group that can afford it to a degree, but they still need the majority of it to be funded. And so by working with you know, our our friends at the state level, where we’re finding ways to bring in those publicly funded spots. And we find we work with the school district, we work with foundations, private donors, to try to serve that middle ground, and then we work to build the capacity so that we can still serve those that are able to fund the private pay spots, and so it is a really careful balance of growing the capacity in a way that serves the community, but still working to find that affordability piece. And so it we have to be able to increase the the educational piece, serve the needs of the kids in a way that that meets their behavioral needs, their developmental needs, the needs of the parents, but also meets all these other very complex issues.
Erin Borla 14:31
Yeah I’ve always been so impressed with your your director of your preschool, and how you pull all these pieces together, the community partnerships you’ve developed, and the passion that you not only you have, but your whole team has for for young people and and the inspiration, right? Everything that is in the museum is set up to inspire the next, the next, greatest idea, right? And it’s the same thing with the preschool. So while we have a pay equity issue. For those working with young children, there is this opportunity to really change lives. And I think in addition, yeah, go ahead.
Sunny Spicer 15:11
No, that’s, I think people, people are seeing that more because, you know, you you see people that go out and try a different pathway, and they might come back to it too, because, you know, little kids, they let you know how much they they care about you, and how much they love what they’re doing. And that matters. That matters to a lot of people, and when you can make that level of a difference, even though it is incredibly hard, this is sort of that, that ground, you know, ground zero here, where we can make that difference. And the partnership that we have with the Medford School District, that’s one of the things that is really it’s been magical about what we do here is the feedback we get from them how much of a difference it makes and and why they’re so willing to be working so closely with us. Because when kids have those opportunities early on, and the teachers have the support that they need and can do the work that they want to do, it really does make a difference. And so I think when people make the choice for that career and they see that it really does matter.
Erin Borla 16:25
Yeah, because every student, every kiddo, deserves that opportunity to have a passionate person that cares about them outside of the home, helping them get to the next level. And I love that partnership that you have with the school district in Medford is just brilliant. And I love that you’re bringing in middle schools to school students and high school students to help engage and get inspired for that work that you’re doing. And I think oftentimes we forget about our sweet friends at middle school, because they can be a little difficult occasionally, but it’s those moments of like they get to make that decision on their own for the first time, that sort of age group of like, I get to know, I get to make that choice. It’s not mom’s choice or grandma’s choice, or, you know, my guardian’s choice. It’s me. I’m deciding what’s important.
Sunny Spicer 17:10
Exactly, well and to a preschooler, those middle schoolers are they’re not an adult, but they’re just one of the cool kids, and they’re there, helping them, and they’re talking to them, and that makes everybody in that room feel very, very special. And that’s a really, that’s a really lovely thing.
Erin Borla 17:28
Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. We talk a lot about isolation in senior populations right now, and it’s definitely a hot topic. And so to hear it brought up as it relates to young children is really interesting. And I think, you know, we’re the most connected we’ve probably ever been as a society with our new devices and everything else that we have, but we’re also the most disconnected, and it’s brought on all these different components. And I our young people are definitely feeling that. So providing space for folks to disconnect or unplug, I guess.
Sunny Spicer 18:08
Unplug and actually connect.
Erin Borla 18:12
Do you have stories of folks doing that at the museum? Like, what’s one of your favorite memories of seeing somebody, really, I don’t know, getting in the sandbox?
Sunny Spicer 18:23
That happens all the time. I will say that, um, our our sand play and our stream are, are absolutely the bain of our existence. In the fact that they are, there is sand in everything we have now. But when you talk about a space for everybody to connect and have fun and enjoy, the second day that our our outdoor space was open, I saw a dad come in carrying two big bags of things. He brought extra changes of clothes. He brought the swim diapers. He brought he brought food, he brought everything, and he was like, Oh, we’re in it this time. And he was out there playing with his kids the entire day. And so he figured it out that, oh, this is the place where nothing else is going to happen. We are just here. We’re having fun. We’re enjoying it. And so I think once people really experience all the opportunities that are here. They really can get the full experience from it. And so that is what’s important. I mean, I think about how difficult it was to develop, especially our outdoor space. Our outdoor space was a lot. It was very expensive. It takes a lot to maintain, but it is also just an absolutely incredible space to facilitate those those interactions, because not everybody can drive to the coast and go to the beach and sit there all day, or they don’t necessarily have bikes and let their kids run around on the trike track. They. Have musical instruments at home that they can sit there and play together. And so it is worth putting in that investment and having those spaces where people can come together and enjoy those experiences. We’ve had a parent that has said over and over again, there’s a lot of families that say this, but when they when they come and become part of our organization, that they feel like they have another 20 people on their team, and I hope that’s what people feel, because we feel like we’re a part of their team as well. When we just we step into that, because it’s we don’t look at people as like customers. That is, that is not what we’re doing like we’re there to support them and find other resources and find ways to help them through this process, because we want to put them on that right trajectory.
Erin Borla 20:52
Yeah, so as you were moving into the space that you’re in now, there was some state investment, there was some, I think there was some federal investment, but there was philanthropic investment. Tell me about that journey on the sort of capital expansion and and how philanthropy helped, how they could have helped better. What are, what you’re looking for now, and all those roles.
Sunny Spicer 21:13
So, um, the very first thing that happened when we moved into this space is the city gave us a 50 year, dollar a year lease on the Carnegie building, and that sort of launched us into having a permanent space. It, of course, needed work, needed a lot of renovation. There were a lot of things that needed to happen. So we didn’t just get a free building, but it did give us the platform to create, create this beautiful space. The state got involved, gave some money. There were a number of foundations. Thank you very much. That did a lot for us. Without that, none of this would have happened. There are a number of individual donors who gave from under $10 to six figure donations without all those people and all those different resources lining up, we none of this would have happened, and none of this would keep happening, because all those really amazing programs that I talk about, the drop in programs, the reason we can do those and make them free is because they’re supported through, typically through grants and foundation dollars and also through individual donations. Because if, if we don’t do that, if we don’t, we don’t find ways to keep them free, then again, we’re putting obstacles in place that prevent people from being able to participate in them. And so my goal is to always make sure that our programs remain free no matter what. Because even if someone could afford to pay for them, if we put that barrier up, then that is a barrier from keeping a child from participating. And so that’s where we always will need the community to step in and be a part of it, and you’ll see an incredible return on that investment. What do they say? Like that, for every dollar you invest in early childhood, you see it 13 times over as that child becomes an adult. I mean, there are significant studies that that prove that. And so this is where these investments really matter. And so we we can do a lot. We have a lot of really trained, dedicated staff. We can find all these fantastic materials, but if we don’t have the resources to put it in play, it just doesn’t happen.
Erin Borla 23:39
Well. And I think people are certainly recognizing what you’re doing. Let’s talk a little bit about the new investment in Josephine County, which, for folks outside of the state of Oregon, is a neighboring county to where you’re at right now, smaller population, but in rural right? Why don’t you tell us about that?
Sunny Spicer 23:58
So we were approached by a group of people in in Josephine County about the possibility of having having a satellite Museum in preschool there. And my initial response was sure, but we can’t just materialize a space for this, so you guys will need to find something. And a few months later, there were some people involved with Dutch Bros that came back and said, hey, we might have a building for you. And it was not much longer that all of a sudden, Dutch Bros donated their corporate headquarters to us, and their corporate headquarters is an absolutely gorgeous building right in downtown, right in downtown Grants Pass. It’s the biggest philanthropic donation that Dutch Bros has ever given. And so they gave us this amazing space. And so we will be expanding and building a satellite museum, another preschool. And it looks like the city of Grants Pass is also donating a little tiny park that is right alongside it, but we’ll be able to expand what we’re doing into another county. Now, we still have a lot of funds to raise, but this, this donation from Dutch Bros, got us halfway there
Erin Borla 25:18
Well, and it’s an opportunity to talk about how, what philanthropy means, right? It doesn’t have to mean a grant check. There are all these other ways that we can come together as a community and build partnership to achieve a goal, and if the goal for that community is supporting early learners, this was a great way to do that, and absolutely amazing. I’m so excited. It’s always so fun to talk to you, Sunny. Thank you for the work that you’re doing. Thank you for the support that you’re giving to our next generation, supporting curiosity and lifelong learners, and giving parents an opportunity to have a space to take a deep breath and just enjoy their kiddos.
Sunny Spicer 26:03
Thank you for all that you’re doing.
Erin Borla 26:21
It’s been really fun to watch the Center for Creative Learning grow, just even in the last several years that we’ve been connected with Sunny and her team, and see the recognition that they’ve gotten and the different projects that they’ve been able to pull together, the involvement from different communities coming to those places, different schools coming in, watching what they’re able to do and seeing what they can replicate, and then parents what they can take home and what they can do at home. And it really talks about the importance of those third spaces, right? Libraries, children’s museums, other socializing places where folks get a chance to just come together as community. And how can philanthropy better support those places, especially in rural spaces. How do we bring community together? How do we recreate that community hub that so many of us feel like we’ve lost? I think the Center for Creative Learning also offers this interesting moment as we talk about scale, right? They were gifted this beautiful building in a neighboring county to be able to replicate their model, because it’s so effective. We’ve been able to see what works in this one region and build on that, and is, are there ways to replicate that in other places? We’ll certainly share links in our show notes so you can find out more about them and their awesome programs, as well as several other resources. So check out FundingRural.com
