Public Programming

A Welcoming Week Celebration on the US-Mexico Border

By Ann Fortescue and Claudia Martinez

This fall, AAM partnered with Welcoming America to encourage museums to participate in its annual Welcoming Week, in which organizations around the country welcome new immigrants and refugees into their new communities. For one AAM member, …
Programs for People “Fifty-five and Better”

By Teresa Bonner

In 2018, twenty organizations enrolled in a special museum cohort of Aroha Philanthropies’ Seeding Vitality Arts® program. This is the third cohort of grantees that have received funding from Aroha, and training provided by Lifetime Arts, …
Celebrating Personal Histories: The Neon Museum’s creative aging performance workshops

By Joanne (Jo) Russ

In 2018, twenty organizations enrolled in a special museum cohort of Aroha Philanthropies’ Seeding Vitality Arts program. With funding from Aroha, and training provided by Lifetime Arts, these museums are developing high-quality, intensive …
Is History Haunted?: Three museums explain their supernatural programs

By Andrea Malcomb, Mark Nardone, and Kristen Sheldon

Around October, the weather gets cold, the days get shorter, and the spine begins to tingle. People start looking for eerie activities to scratch the itch, whether haunted houses, horror movies, or ghost tours. This is an interesting …
Mystic Chords of Memory: Writing workshops as museum creative aging programs

By Bill Tramposch

Nearly a career ago, I visited a mentor and friend at the historical society he directed on a Saturday afternoon. As we sat in his office chatting, I heard a phone ring in the society’s library a long way down a cavernous hall. It rang and …
Getting Through to Creative Agers

By Bill Tramposch

As we develop creative aging programs for museums, it behooves us to think about how to make our efforts as engaging for the audience as possible. Doing this successfully requires a heightened sensitivity to the needs and interests of …
The Unexpected Joys of Launching a Creative Aging Program

By Elizabeth Merritt

In 2018, 20 organizations enrolled in a special museum cohort of Aroha Philanthropies’ Seeding Vitality Arts program. With funding from Aroha, and training provided by Lifetime Arts, these museums are developing high quality, intensive …
Creating Vibrant Programs for Older Adults

By Delano Wood

It is a particular pleasure to hear from kindred spirits in creative aging who have been keeping up with our Ad Summa blogs. One such person is the indefatigable Delano Wood from DOROT in New York City. When he contacted me about his …
Confronting a Painful History: How a museum partnered with its Native community to educate the public about an offensive place name

By Michele Graves

The Black Rock Historical Society (BRHS) is a volunteer organization on the west side of Buffalo, NY, formed in 2013 around the two-hundredth anniversary of the War of 1812 and chartered with the New York State Education Department in …
The Memory Café: Creating a museum program for people with dementia

By Norman Burns

At Conner Prairie—a Smithsonian Affiliate living history museum in Fishers, Indiana—we recently debuted a program for people with Dementia and Alzheimer’s. In partnership with the Central Indiana Council on Aging (CICOA) and Dementia …