Two-year-old Adam Sondgeroth sorted out toy groceries with his dad in an outdoor space at a brand-new children’s museum in Ventura County.
The facility is just one of the interactive activities for children at KidSTREAM, the county's only children’s museum. It was the idea of founder Kristie Akl, who noticed a need for a kids' museum within easier reach for the community.
"It's a fulfillment of a dream," said Akl. "It's incredible. It became kind of a mission. What we're seeing is a reflection of about a decade of community input on what people wanted to have and see, and they really wanted to see their community reflected back. So we prototyped all of these things, and now we've activated into a much larger permanent space. Underlining all of this, even though it's this incredible tactile, loose parts, role-playing space for kids, is the ethos, the underlying core of who KidStream is and will always be, is here for every child, accessible to every child."
It’s been years in the making, and now KidSTREAM is ready to welcome visitors to a space that was once the public library.
It's been filled with thoughtful interactive exhibits, says KidSTREAM board chair Bryan Yee.
"If you look over here, right around the greenhouse, you can see agriculture because so much of our region is steeped in agriculture, and there's science behind agriculture that children will be learning about. You see the Channel Islands right over there...just off our coast is a landscape that our children are familiar with. They see it, and now they'll be learning about the science of the ocean, and of animals, and so forth. It's a beautiful thing that's come together here."
Adam Sondgeroth's dad, Nick, took a sip of his pretend smoothie. He has a young family, and previously, for a day out at a kids' museum like this, it would have meant traveling over an hour to Pasadena or Santa Barbara, which isn’t an option for everyone.
"We were very, very excited about there being a space like this for our kids as they grow up and then just for the community as a whole," said Sondgeroth. "We're looking forward to spending a lot of time here."
In a time when kids have so many distractions, screens, and short attention spans, KidSTREAM is a place where they can focus on hands-on educational play.
Just ask 6-year-old Clara.
"I think it's 20 out of 20," she told KCLU. "I like the light-up things."
It’s hoped that KidSTREAM will bring accessible educational play to Ventura County for many generations to come.
