Discovery Museum granted $100K for prisoner program
Mitchell Green courtesy JM Coull
Visitors enjoy the treehouse and climbing net at The Discovery Museums' Discovery Woods.
The Discovery Museum of Acton received a grant of $100,000 from the Cummings Foundation’s $25-million grant program, the museum announced Friday.
Specifically, the funds for the Discovery Museum will finance its prison outreach project. In partnership with Concord Prison Outreach and MCI Concord’s Building Responsible Adults through Validation and Education Unit, the project aims to help and enhance young, incarcerated fathers’ relationships with visiting children. The BRAVE unit homes a maximum of 30 fathers at a time, mostly under the age of 26. There are 15 older fathers as mentors.
Initiatives supported by the donation and planned by the museum’s education team will include nine guided activity kits, expansion of the BRAVE unit library – notably an addition of children’s books – and Discovery Museum free admission and family membership for families of BRAVE residents.
“The generous support of Cummings Foundation will help Discovery Museum provide educational resources and playful activities to support young fathers,” Brindha Muniappan, senior director of the museum experience, said in the museum’s announcement. “Most importantly, this project will help young fathers build and sustain trusting relationships with their children, mitigating some of the trauma of separation for both the parent and the child, and potentially ending cycles of incarceration.”
Founded in 1982, the museum holds interactive activities based in science and nature and planned by professional educators for families.
The Woburn-based Cummings’ $25-million grant program awarded funds to 140 local nonprofits of the 580 that applied. The various organizations received between $100,000 and $500,000. Discovery Museum’s $100,000 will be gifted over a period of three years.
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