YouZeum faces budget troubles

The interactive museum cut its hours of operation.

By Taylor Combs

Published Oct. 13, 2009

In the face of an economic downturn, YouZeum, a children's health museum in downtown Columbia, has reduced the number of days it is open and has changed its focus to programming initiatives aimed at home-schooled students and stay-at-home parents.

YouZeum is open five days a week from Tuesday to Saturday. From Tuesday to Thursday the museum is open with limited morning hours for special programming where only some of the exhibits are open. The first and third Thursday of every month are dedicated to events for home-schooled children with themed events, such as brain dissections. YouZeum has two full-time staff members and six part-time workers who come in on busy days.

"It just doesn't make sense to have staff there when all the kids are in school," YouZeum Chairman Michael Szewczyk said. "When our target audience is in school, we have to adapt to that."

Lorah Steiner, Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director, said the reduced hours might lead to a reduction in business.

"When you are not open every single day you are going to see a decline in the number of visitors because people show up, they can't get in the door, they leave," Steiner said. "No one knows whether they will come back or not."

Weaker-than-expected donations have become part of the problem. Szewczyk said many donations made to YouZeum came from investors wanting to donate their assets to avoid the taxes on that money. When the stock market fell, so did donations. Even with the financial difficulties, family memberships have risen on a monthly basis this year from May to September.

"Research based on other similar science centers said that 40 percent to 50 percent of your revenue comes from donations and grants from individuals, corporations or the government," Szewczyk said.

The museum, which opened in May 2008, is housed in a 30,000-square-foot federally-owned building that used to be a post office. The federal government will continue to own the building for 25 years. Szewczyk said the building had to be completely gutted before opening, which cost the museum almost $2 million.

Special Business District Chairwoman Mary Wilkerson said the museum, as it was originally envisioned, would help bring business and development to the downtown area.

"Only being open a few days a week is certainly not what they expected when they started," Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson said YouZeum has a viable audience in Columbia that just needs to be cultivated in the right way. Convincing visitors to return to the museum after their first visit is necessary for the museum's success, Steiner said.

"The basic concept of the YouZeum I think was not flawed, but it didn't really take into account the need to really change things up on a fairly frequent basis," she said.

Part of the museum's strategy to raise awareness of events is to send out flyers in the take-home folders of Columbia Public School district students, which Youzeum's Director of Education Lindsay Butcher said reach more than 10,000 students at local elementary and middle schools.

Friday, children from Eldon Elementary in Eldon rode stationary bikes on a virtual MKT Trail and played games on an interactive talking vending machine that teaches kids to make healthy choices, which Szewczyk said is a goal of the YouZeum. Students also learned about healthy eating habits by looking at virtual restaurant menus.

"I think the museum has done everything correctly," Eldon Elementary teacher Cheryl Combs said. "The kids loved everything about it."