By MLe McWilliams
In December, my nearly two-year long journey balancing graduate school with building my career as an arts leader will come to an end as I walk across the stage with my fellow University of Houston grads. It has been a long and hard but rewarding journey, full of late nights attending class only to wake up early for my full-time job as an educator at the Children’s Museum of Houston. And while I’m proud of achieving this personal academic milestone, I’m most proud of the connections I built while completing my graduate practicum project—building and strengthening the ties between the Children’s Museum of Houston and the city’s LGBTQ community.
In order to graduate from the university’s M.A. in Arts Leadership program, each student is required to complete a 300–hour practicum project in the form of an internship. Most students choose a local arts non-profit and work in the education, public relations, marketing, or development departments. Instead, I made the decision to build on the Children’s Museum’s outreach department to complete three goals: to meet and secure partnerships with LGBTQ non-profits in Houston; to create and staff the first-ever Children’s Museum booth at the Houston LGBTQ Pride Festival; and to position and showcase the museum as a safe place for all families to come, have fun, and learn together.
I developed the idea for my practicum project in my Art and Community Engagement class during my first semester in grad school. For the course’s final project, we had to create a concept that connected art and the local community. I decided to bring my own two communities—the queer community and the Children’s Museum—together. At the Children’s Museum, we pride ourselves in reaching out to all communities within the Houston area. However, after working there for almost five years, I noticed that we had never worked with the city’s queer community. After some research and many conversations within Houston’s LGBTQ community, I recognized that queer families were not being highlighted or catered to by the Children’s Museum. I decided that the best way to connect these two communities was for the museum to host a booth at the Houston LGBTQ Pride Festival, one of the largest in the nation.
After completing the class assignment, I brought the idea to the directors of the Children’s Museum. With their approval, I began to reach out to local LGBTQ non-profits to have them join our Open Doors partnership program, as well as to form and lead a volunteer team to staff the Pride booth.
My first step was to apply for Houston Pride’s Celebrations Grant, funding set aside for up to five non-profits looking to have a space at the festival. I had never applied for a grant before, but I asked for support from my coworkers who were delighted to help. To my surprise, I got the grant! Later, when I attended a Pride Houston board meeting to thank them for the funding, I learned that the organization’s new leadership was very interested in transitioning the festival into a family-friendly event, and the Children’s Museum booth in the Family Fun Zone would help kick off this transformation.
Next, I had to decide what activities I wanted our booth to offer to the children and families attending the festival. After participating in several outreach events during my internship, I chose activities that were simple for all ages—spin art, egg shakers, and catapult airplanes.
After a few months of planning, preparing, and recruiting volunteers, the day of Pride finally arrived. We had a plethora of visitors come to our booth, each more excited than the next to participate in our activities and talk with the museum staff.
The Children Museum’s inaugural booth at the Houston Pride Festival was a great beginning to a larger dialogue and relationship with the LGBTQ community. If you are a non-profit in the greater Houston area that provides services to families and would like to be a part of our Open Doors program, email Fernando Perez, manager of community partnerships, at [email protected]. Each community partner is eligible to receive free family passes to the museum, along with other perks. Visit cmhouston.org/opendoors to learn more.
