Supporter Spotlight: Stu & Jane Grodin
Stu Grodin remembers with pride the day he, Jane, and Cathy Schmitz put the first strokes of blue paint on the wall of KidsPlay’s original gallery in the front of 61 Main Street, in preparation for the series of Thursday night pop-up events that marked the first opening of the Museum.
With a little grimace, his wife, Jane Grodin, also remembers first having to clean the walls of the mostly disused space. “They were filthy,” she says.
Both lifelong educators, the Grodins were always dedicated to the teaching of young children. In 2010, when an advisory committee was formed to investigate the possibility of opening a children’s museum in Torrington, they were quick to become involved.
Their role quickly evolved from research and discussion to real, dedicated volunteer work, from painting and cleaning to staffing the pop-ups and building exhibits. “My first exhibit was Tool Time,” Stu recalls. The exhibit featured a child-sized workbench with toy tools. “Within a few weeks, it was totally destroyed,” he says with a laugh. “We learned that we really had to kid test things first.”
While the Grodins and the other founding board members were learning what was needed to run a children’s museum, they were also teaching people about Torrington’s potential to be a hub of early childhood education. “It was a tremendous uphill battle. We were met with a lot of negativity.”
Despite challenges, though, the initial response to the Thursday night pop-ups was so overwhelmingly positive that, rather than closing the pop-up after the summer as had been originally planned, KidsPlay continued to run on a limited basis as an all-volunteer effort. As time went on, the Museum was able to hire paid staff and expand its footprint. “We realized that we could dream,” Stu says. “We could make this happen.” Today, through the efforts of Stu, Jane, and others, the Museum now operates three buildings and over 20,000 square feet of space – far, far more than the small original advisory committee had dreamed.
Stu and Jane are both part of KidsPlay’s Legacy Circle, a group of dedicated supporters who have made a commitment to support KidsPlay in their estate planning. “This is our legacy,” says Stu. “This is how we will continue to educate and amuse children. To me, the best sound on the planet is the sound of a child laughing.”