The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor has awarded grants the Explore & More Children's Museum and the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site. Executive Director Stanton Hudson says the $5,000 funding will help develop programming about the role immigrant populations played in forming Buffalo and other communities along the Erie Canal.
"Our expectation [is] to help inform, to educate, and to enlighten our Western New York citizens on the issue of immigration through dialogue and programming that will ultimately serve as a catalyst for positive change in our community," Hudson said Friday.
Explore & More Children's Museum will use its $12,000 grant for an interactive exhibit on the Erie Canal in its new museum, slated to open on Buffalo's waterfront in 2016.
Executive Director Barb Leggett says the funding will help the organization grow.
"The museum will be serving, in its opening year, about 225,000 visitors," Leggett said. "We see this as an opportunity to introduce children to the world of museums and historic sites and really expand their education knowledge."
Explore & More currently operates a small, but popular children's museum in East Aurora. The grant money will go toward an exhibit at the new site called Moving Waters.
The Heritage Corridor announced $65,530 in grants for ten projects across the state Friday, which will be matched by an additional $478,000 in private and public project funding raised by grant recipients.