Children’s museum $50,000 closer to breaking ground

There were plenty of uneasy days for workers of the Bayou Country Children’s Museum in recent weeks.

With the museum entered into an online contest sponsored by Pepsi, the up and coming project needed to place in the Top 10 by the contest’s closing to win a $50,000 grant.

And those who were keeping tabs of the voting knew it was going to be close.

“We started at I think No 8, but then we had dropped all the way to No. 14 when everyone started to get more people to vote, because they had almost 300 projects approved,” said Kathleen Gros, the president of the museum’s board of directors. “So we’d look at the standings every day to see where we were. It was sometimes a nervous time, but we knew that every single vote would count and slowly but surely we kept creeping up.”

But with the deadline now past, there’s a collective sigh of relief for Gros and the others with the museum, because the much-needed help is coming their way.

The museum finished sixth out of the projects and will now get the funding – money Gros said will go a long way in helping the museum break ground on construction.

“It’s wonderful to win something,” Gros said. “But it’s even more fun to see that the reason we got it is because people believe in what we’re trying to do. It doesn’t get any better than that as far as we’re concerned.”

The first portion of the funding will be given to the children’s museum this week and the second $25,000 will be donated in April.

“It has to be used in one year and it will be used for building design and architects fees and contracts and things like that,” Gros said. “We’re just really happy, because this is some much-needed help.”

With the funding now at their disposal, Gros said the museum is “much, much closer,” to being a reality.

She said future fundraisers are also going to be done soon to try to push the project over the top.

The museum is currently trying to build its assets to get a construction loan, according to Gros.

If that domino can fall into place, others would soon to follow, which would result in the project’s completion, according to the board president.

“Once we get the funding we need to get that loan, we can be breaking ground within three to four months,” Gros said. “And then from there, it would be another 9 to 12 months and we’d be looking at having a building built. We have plenty of exhibits that are ready for fabrication and the building is already designed. We’re just waiting for that last little bit of funding and we’ll be able to get going with it. We’re very close.”