MLK Day Brings Excitement To Great River Children’s Museum [PHOTOS]

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- It was a record-setting day for one of St. Cloud's newest attractions on Saturday. The Great River Children's Museum saw 1,448 people go through for its MLK Family Day. The event was free to attend for both members and non-members alike. Kids got to help build a Dream Wall mural, hear stories, and take part in all the museum's attractions.

CEO Cassie Miles says it was the museum's biggest day yet, and they had a lot of first-time visitors:

"What's great is that the community is showing up, so we've had a lot of people walking through the door saying this is our first opportunity to see this space, we're so excited that you're offering this. We've had people who are also coming in excited that the activities are going on because they didn't know it was happening today, so a bit of things on both sides. We're drawing the crowd with the activities, and there's also a nice surprise for folks who weren't planning on it."

Miles says teaching the kids about Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dream, and how to make the community better, is so important.

The overall message of the day is that working together makes the community great.

She says they hope the kids bring home the lesson that everybody has to take part and work together to make their community great.

"Everything here though is about learning through play, and what we teach kids is collaboration, about how things are easier and better together. We teach kids how to dream and how to be curious, and that's kind of what we're inspired by by MLK, right, he had this dream for a community that was all unified in their efforts to make the community better because when you do better, I do better, and we all do better."

Miles says all the activities were inspired by that message of working together for the betterment of everyone. The Great River Children's Museum's MLK Family Day ran from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday.

READ MORE FROM AUTHOR PAUL HABSTRITT