Accessibility Project Match

This summer the Museum's three interns researched and developed an Accessibility Proposal that would improve the Museum experience for all visitors with a special emphasis on resources helpful for neurodivergent visitors, or those who have varied sensory needs in public spaces.  

The Museum received a matching grant from the Department of Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation to fund this project, which includes the purchase two wheelchair accessible picnic tables, plants for a sensory garden and supplies for a sensory bag for neurodivergent visitors.

Our Give to the Max Day fundraiser will help offset the fund match by the Museum ($2,500).

Project Details:

The overarching goal of this project is to make the Dorothy Molter Museum a more welcoming and accessible space to all visitors by both using existing and new resources to create sensory-friendly spaces and experiences. This project has been divided into multiple phases as it is a multifaceted endeavor.

Phase I of this project has focused on enhancing the experience of visitors and included all elements that can be achieved with in-kind services, and little or no budget required, often utilizing resources already on-site.

- Improved closed-captioning on the Living in the Boundary Waters 15min exhibit video

- Create online resources directed specifically towards neurodivergent visitors:

• A video depicting a Museum visit from a first-person perspective (in process). 
• A printable and downloadable social narrative depicting different Museum environments, social guidelines, and visitor expectations (nearing completion)
• A printable and downloadable communication and scheduling card with Museum-related words and phrases (nearing completion)

- Repurposing an existing planter boat to move and create a sensory garden within a designated "quiet space"

The Museum is also communicating with the North American Bear Center and the International Wolf Center to collaborate on offering sensory-friendly appointments for  visitors with sensory needs and their families in the future.

Phase II of this project includes elements that require funds to purchase supplies to complete. 

- Turn unused parking lot-adjacent space into a sensory-friendly area for visitors to relax and recover in a semi-private and separate space from other Museum visitors

- Add two ADA picnic tables

- Planting sensory-friendly plants within an existing planter boat (garden in an old boat) to create a sensory garden within the "quiet space" 

- Establish a resource sensory bag for visitors and their families to use while visiting the museum

Additional staff training will be incorporated into 2024 annual and new staff training modules that address creating welcoming museum spaces from the Museum, Arts and Culture Access Consortium and the Autism Society of Minnesota.