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Wegmans donates $1 million to Canalside children's museum

Explore & More

As the community continues to see major redevelopment along downtown Buffalo's waterfront, another piece of the future is getting closer to reality. Explore & More announced a major capital gifts donation Thursday as it works to build a children's museum at Canalside.

Wegmans is providing $550,000 to put its name on the "From Farm To Fork" education play zone and cooking galley. The Wegman Family Charitable Foundation delivered another $500,000 to support a rooftop garden at the new museum. 

Explore & More executive director Barbara Leggett tells WBFO News the Canalside museum is on track to open in 2016.

"We really have two parallel paths. We're looking at, what will this museum look like? What will our programs be? We're working with the community on that, and then we're working on the fundraising piece of this," Leggett says.

Credit Explore & More
An artist rendering of a planned rooftop garden at the new Explore & More children's museum.

Explore & More is working to raise a total of $10 million in its Play It Forward Capital Campaign to construct the waterfront museum. It will sit on 40,000-thousand square feet of Canalside land.