Kudos Affiliates!!! February 2024

Kudos to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING

Frontiers of Flight Museum (Dallas, TX) received a grant from the PPG Foundation to provide aerospace education to the North Texas area. The grant contribution from the foundation will allow over 4,000 girls from underserved Dallas County neighborhoods to participate in its Aerospace-STEM Challenge for Girls program next year. The museum’s initiative provides opportunities for girls to learn from women in senior leadership roles in the aerospace industry.

Adler Planetarium (Chicago, IL) will partner with Southern Illinois University on a $2.6M grant from NASA for the SolarSTEAM project, which uses celestial marvels as inspiration to study the sun. The grant, which runs through June 2026, will pay for a multifaceted, national heliophysics public engagement and empowerment program centered on the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse. Adler Planetarium will provide heliophysics-themed videos and other visualizations tied to actual events for national distribution to museums, planetariums and amateur astronomy clubs.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Plimoth Patuxet Museums (Plymouth, MA) received two awards from the New England Museum Association (NEMA) that recognize the outstanding work of museum staff and projects. Kim VanWormer, Guest Experience Manager for the Plimoth Grist Mill, was the recipient of NEMA’s tenth annual Excellence Award and Plimoth Patuxet received second place in NEMA’s 2023 Publication Award for its keystone publication – Plimoth Patuxet Life: The Thanksgiving Edition.

George Sparks, President & CEO of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (Denver, CO) was the winner of the Pinnacle Award in the Denver Business Journal’s 2023 Most Admired CEO awards program.

The American Alliance of Museums announced 41 reaccreditation awards featuring the following Affiliates:

:

• Fort Worth Museum of Science & History (Fort Worth, TX)
• Historic Annapolis (Annapolis, MD)
• International Museum of Art & Science (McAllen, TX)
• Museum of the Rockies (Bozeman, MT)
• National Canal Museum – Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (Easton, PA)
• Springfield Museums (Springfield, MA)
• University of Nebraska State Museum (Lincoln, NE)

Maha Freij, president & CEO of Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), was honored with the prestigious “Let Freedom Ring” Social Service award. The award presented by Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Push Coalition, recognizes individuals whose work and actions embody Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy of social justice and humanity. ACCESS is the parent organization of the Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI).

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