It’s been a very good year for the Children’s Discovery Museum of the Desert—with the highlight coming back in May, when the museum buildings re-opened for the first time since the COVID-19 shutdowns arrived in March 2020.
But even before that, good things were happening for the popular family destination: On Feb. 28, the Rancho Mirage Chamber of Commerce honored the venue with the “Heart of Rancho Mirage” award. Since the reopening, events have returned to the museum’s campus, including a recent Halloween party and, in November, the Holiday Arts and Crafts Show and Shopping Village, an inclusive community event featuring the talents of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Now, as the year winds down, Coachella Valley Independent readers have selected the Children’s Discovery Museum of the Desert as the Best Indoor Activity for Kids. The honor was received with excitement by the museum’s CEO, Cindy Burreson.
“My initial reaction is just so much gratefulness, particularly due to the fact that we just reopened at the end of May,” Burreson said. “So we’ve only been open for a few months, and I think this is really indicative of the community’s pent-up demand for us to reopen, and also, what a treasure this museum is to our community. We’re so grateful that the community would think that we are worthy of such a beautiful recognition.”
The long-awaited re-opening was made possible by more than $2 million of fundraising capital, bolstered by a line of credit from FirstBank.
“Having reopened is amazing, because first of all, we were able to hire a brand-new staff,” Burreson said. “They’re really the magic behind all of this. They’re the secret sauce that makes it happen every day. But also, welcoming the community back has just been emotional. Every day, (we see) what we call ‘satisfied customers,’ which are the kids who are crying when they leave, because they don’t want to go. That’s such an amazing thing, and it’s wonderful to see the family interaction, and know the place we hold in this community, and how special it is for the families.”
Two of the three campus buildings are currently in regular use, after going through a “re-imagination” process during the closure. Building 1, a space designed for children up to the age of 8, includes creative ways to “Imagine,” “Express,” “Move,” “Experiment,” “Explore” and “Dream,” with almost 40 new exhibits created by Hands On! Studios, which also created the museum’s original exhibits.
Building 2 offers additional fun and interactive opportunities for children and their grown-ups.
“We’re constantly evolving our second building, bringing things in and out of that space,” Burreson said. “… We’re still bringing in new building blocks and different experiences. The pizza place was one of our longstanding exhibits that was in the building that we just re-imagined, so we moved it over to Building 2, and we refreshed it a bit. We bought different foods so it wasn’t just pizza; now, we have foods from around the world so kids can learn about other cultures, and then we bought books that accompany those foods. We have books in Mandarin, Spanish and English that reflect different cultures, different holidays and different types of families and such.
“Then, the grocery store is now a farmers’ market. Before, it had soda and things that may not have been the healthiest choices for kids, so we’ve updated it to have fruits and vegetables and flowers, things of that nature. Now, it’s sort of representative of our agricultural history here in the valley as well. It’s just a role play … and with the grocery store, we have a cash register and shopping bags, and (children) can ‘buy’ their food, and another kid can ring them up. We have a pretend veterinary clinic where they can make sick animals well, and take X-rays and things like that. It’s all about pretend play.”
Burreson said a pediatrician speaks on a variety of topics to new parents twice a month. “She has a different topic every month. We try to bring some different things to our families, to engage with them and ask them, ‘What do you want to see? What, or who, do you want to be here? What would be helpful for you as a parent or a grandparent?’”
Burreson said more renovations—and additional fundraising activities—are planned.
“We have the third building, where we will be creating (spaces) for middle-school and high-school aged kids,” Burreson said. “That’s going to be a place where they can have resources for 3-D printing, or sewing and embroidery, life-skills classes, and all kinds of different things. We’re also going to be building what we’re calling the ‘Yoga Lawn,’ which is going to be a place for encouraging mental health and wellness for kids, for their grown-ups and for our staff. There, we’ll have things like yoga, journaling, meditation, sound baths, book clubs and things of that nature to encourage mental health with the littles, the bigs and our staff.”
All of these aforementioned activities and exhibit areas are part of the regular museum programming, accessible to any visitors who pay the admission fee. The museum also offers added value programs such as the “Little Chefs” or “Little Scientists” experiences, which require registration and an additional fee.
“The program classes are longer in duration, and they are a parent and child activity, such as cooking new recipes, and they’re four-week programs,” Burreson said.
The holiday season will bring the third annual “Jingle Bell Rock” event on Sunday, Dec. 8.
“It’s a free community event where we have photos with Santa, cookie decorating, arts and crafts, music and all kinds of fun things going on in the courtyard,” Burreson said. “The museum is closed that day, but it’s just a big community event that has been really successful in the last couple of years while we’ve been closed. We really anticipate that, this year, it’s going to be gangbusters.”
On March 1, the museum will be the beneficiary of a concert by Jimmy’s Buffet, a Jimmy Buffett tribute band, part of Palm Desert’s annual concert series at The Gardens on El Paseo.
“We do have a lot of fundraising events coming up,” Burreson said. “We are a nonprofit, so fundraising events are integral to making sure that we’re able to continue our programming and our events.
“One thing that’s really important to us is to have varied programming, because we have a lot of members who come several times a week. We want to make sure that what we present to our visitors is something different every time they come in. … Whether that’s music, or arts and crafts, or story time, or special themed days or events, or different exhibits, we want to constantly be evolving so that we’re always interesting to our visitors.”
The Children’s Discovery Museum of the Desert is located at 71701 Gerald Ford Drive, in Rancho Mirage. Learn more at cdmod.org.