Surf Cat

Museums are no exception, said Peggy Gregorski, deputy director of the Kenosha Museum Campus — Kenosha Public Museum, Civil War Museum and the Dinosaur Discovery Museum.

“There was a lot of conversation in the museum community — concerns about care and safety — that people are only going to come back if they feel safe,” she said.

All of the buildings closed on March 16 following the governor’s safer-at-home order to help stem the tide of COVID-19.

It wasn’t long before museum directors began to regroup and look towards the future.

“By mid-April, we began starting to think about how to reopen,” she said.

To make this happen, museum staff consulted with the local health department and national museum organizations, including the American Alliance for Museums, the accrediting agency for Kenosha’s museums.

“Museums are trusted organizations, and the expectation is that (we) will make it safe,” Gregorski said.

The upshot was that Kenosha’s museum administrators put its interactive educational programming on hiatus while still opening its facilities to the public.

“The general feeling was that at museums like ours you can have an experience walking through the gallery as opposed to (offering) hands-on science,” Gregorski said.

“We’re definitely doing things carefully and thoughtfully,” said Brenda Roth, external relations assistant for the museums. “I feel good being cautious.”

“We are really focusing on welcoming people back to the building just to visit,” Gregorski said. “Hopefully we are still providing a unique and wonderful museum experience for now.”