Kimbookai Children's Museum
Why Kimbookai?
Children’s Edutainment Museum: A Tri-Cities Children’s Museum
Children’s museums are unique places that bring children, families and communities together for quality interaction. Offering lifelong learning opportunities for audiences as tender as newborns, children’s museums celebrate play and creativity; provide activities that nurture family relationships; establish common ground in communities; collaborate with traditional educational and social service organizations and build creative communities that improve the quality of life.
---The Case for Children’s Museums, Association of Children’s Museums
The Need for Kimbookai
The Tri-Cities area of the East Bay provides the ideal location for a new children’s museum. Demographic data indicate a steady growth in the population, particularly between the ages of 0-5, making it the fourth largest metropolitan area of the larger Bay Area. The data also show that approximately seventy-eight percent of households in the City of Fremont (the proposed location of the museum) earn over $50,000 per year making the sustainability of an admissions based museum a possibility. 
In order to document the need for of this potential market for a locally based children’s museum, the members of the Kimbookai start-up team conducted numerous interviews in 2002 with the parents of young children, as well as compiled quantitative data through an administered survey in the Tri-Cities area of Newark, Fremont and Union City. The results of the survey reveal that:
- Parents experience difficulty keeping their children entertained at home for long periods of time.
- Parents worry about the security of their children while they play in their neighborhoods.
- Parents report that there are no places close-by for quality entertainment; posing the hassle of having to travel many miles in heavy traffic to find quality entertainment places.
- Parents report that there are limited activities to do outside of home during the winter time and during hot summer days.
- While parents enjoy spending time with children and consider it important for their healthy growth, many parents expressed frustration at the intensity of the attention devoted to their children that did not leave much time for their own activities.
- Parents expressed the importance of getting together with other parents for support and exchange of parenting information.
Parents were also questioned about the educational quality of the different places they currently take their children and how these might compare with the proposed Kimbookai Children’s Museum. Generally, parents reported a lack of quality, family-oriented activities in the area and a desire for more meaningful educational and recreational activities for the whole family within driving distance. Over ninety percent of the parents surveyed agreed with the idea there is a need in the Tri-Cities area for a children’s edutainment museum.
With these concerns in mind, the idea of Kimbookai Children’s Museum took shape as a place that would provide quality entertainment for young children—including a variety of stimulating and educational activities in a safe and clean environment, as well as quality child care, and a parents’ lounge area where parents could take some time for themselves and also have an opportunity to meet with other parents.
The Rationale for Kimbookai
Children’s museums have emerged as new community institutions, providing unique, interactive settings where children and adults learn together. Children’s museums represent a community-wide investment in children. Because of their commitment to serving and celebrating the rich diversity within their communities and around the world, children’s museums can serve as important catalysts for creating a shared vision among children and families regarding the future of their communities.
---Collective Vision: Starting and Sustaining a Children’s Museum, Association of Children’s Museums
The benefits and advantages of children’s museums to the development of children, families and communities are well documented.
The Association of Children’s Museums highlights the following as the ways in which children’s museums positively impact children, families and communities:
- Children’s museums help children develop essential foundational skills.
- Children’s museums respect childhood.
- Children’s museums light a creative spark for discovery and lifelong learning.
- Children’s museums are environments where families connect in meaningful ways.
- Children’s museums serve as town squares and build social capital.
- Children’s museums are uniquely positioned to help reverse stigma and discrimination.
- Children’s strengthen community resources that educate and care for children.
- Children’s museums contribute to local economies and reduce economic barriers.
