The Dayton Art institute is joining museums nationwide to offer free admission to active duty military members and their families this summer.
Blue Star Museums is an initiative by the National Endowment for the Arts and Blue Star Families, a military and veteran family support organization.
On Wednesday, the Dayton Art Institute hosted military personnel and their families to kick off the program this summer.
In the US, over 600,000 military families move every year. Joy Brown’s husband is stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — where nearly 35,000 people work. She said this program is a huge help when the family moves.
"It actually means a lot because we have four kids,” Brown said. “We love that as we go across the country, we always find the Blue Star museums where we are, and then we make sure we check them out and it gives us an opportunity to see new things everywhere. So we love it.”
Kathy Roth-Douquet, the CEO of Blue Star Families, said this program is integral to enhancing the lives of military families.
“It's important because we have a lot of military families living in the Dayton area,” Roth-Douquet said. “We partnered with museums across the country so that military families, not just a service member, the whole family, have access together to go to museums and to get the sense of belonging to your local community that is accessible to people.”
Children’s museums, art, science and history museums, zoos, gardens and more are participating in the program. Blue Star Museums will offer free access through Labor Day this year.
Copyright 2023 WYSO. To see more, visit https://www.wyso.org.
